Intrinsic
by Never the End127
Summary: Post Beneath, set during the invasion, Barbara Gordon struggles come to grips with the idea that she may have caused a the death and the betrayal of two team members. Meanwhile, Nightwing struggles to come to grips with the idea that at the price of winning the invasion, he may lose his team, his friend, and even his greatest ally.
1. Socialites

**Rating—T for some mild language and very subtle suggestive themes (I'm a coward)**

**Pairing—Dick and Babs, slight mention of Tim and Cassie (Personally, I like her better with Jaime, but whatever. CN planned that out weirdly.)**

**Chapters—I think I'll have at least five chapters for this one. It will be a continuing series.**

**A/N— Hey guys! I kept wondering why my internet wasn't working. Then I realized that my roommates had changed the password and everyone knew except me. (I will not strike them dead. I will not strike them dead. *chants this like a mantra*) Anyways, I've combed through this 3 times and I'm pretty satisfied. Hope you enjoy!**

**(I have two other stories if you have not read and you like this one. They are called 'Outsecure' and 'She gets away with everything,' a two-shot and a one-shot. Enjoy!)**

**Intrinsic**

She hates these galas. It's not the dressing up and the fancy clothes and make up and the dancing that's the problem—no, that she likes. It's okay to like getting dressed up once and a while. After all, the word feminine is not synonymous with words like prissy, wimpy, or weak.

No, it's these _galas_ she hates.

To her, the people that attend them seem to all be snobby, obnoxious socialites, practically ripping wads of cash out of their designer purses just to wave it in the faces of their so-called friends. Of course, being rich doesn't automatically make you obnoxious. Dick Grayson is proof enough of that. Of course, he is obnoxious, but it has nothing to do with being rich.

Barbara had put a little less thought than usual into this gala. Usually, she dug through Karen and Megan's closets and borrowed a different dress for every event. Last time, she had come in Karen's old prom-dress, which, dusty as it may have been, fit pretty well apparently. She had to remind Dick more than once that it was not his birthday, she was not his girlfriend, and to kindly keep his paws to himself in public.

This time, however, she just didn't have the energy. The team's latest all-girl mission to Bialya had worn her out thoroughly, and she had come home from the mission and slept for sixteen hours straight. She learned later that poor Tim had been working his ass off covering for her on patrol, and she felt guilty, but jeez had that _hurt._ She still had an ache between her shoulder-blades every time she stretched her arms back. So she had dug one of her mom's old evening gowns out of the very back of the dresser that had been untouched for eight years. She had thought her dad might be angry when he saw her in it. But he hadn't said anything except, "Is that mom's dress, hon?"

She had nodded, and they had rode up to Wayne manor in silence.

Barbara snickered into her glass of champagne, watching Tim scramble across the floor to hide behind her dress like a little boy.

"Can you see them? Are they after me?" His voice was panicked.

"Tim, it was cute the first couple of times, but this is getting ridiculous." Barbara half laughed, half sighed. "You're going to have to talk to those girls sooner or later."

"Later." Tim said automatically, trying to duck under the tablecloth.

As if on cue, a group of young girls raced past, each of them craning their ruby-clad throats and shoving with carefully manicured hands, trying to catch a glimpse of the youngest Wayne.

"Aw, come on." Barbara laughed encouragingly, as the last of them disappeared into the thick crowd. "That brunette was pretty cute."

"Cute?" Tim, blushing, withdrew himself from beneath the table and tried to straighten his crumpled suit. "You should see the girl on Dick's arm."

Barbara sighed. "Who is it this time?"

"I can't keep track. He keeps trading them in. It was a red-head five minutes ago. Before that, he was dancing with some big star who's supposedly on the cover of Vogue. And then some sort of supermodel. Jeez, that guy gets around."

Barbara snickered into her glass. "Well, tell him I say hi. I doubt I'll even catch a glimpse of the famous Richard Grayson tonight with all the socialites swarming him."

"Um, Barbara…?" Tim frowned, and Barbara once again found herself marveling at how different the boy looked without his glasses. It was uncanny. "Doesn't that… bother you?"

Barbara blinked. "Why should it?"

Tim rocked back and forth on his feet nervously. "Aren't you and Dick… like… a thing?"

"It's complicated." Barbara said flatly, not even bothering to deny it. "And no, it does not bother me."

"But… but…" Tim eventually gave up, dejectedly pulling a small, puffy pink pastry off one of the trays and shoving it into his mouth. He checked to make sure the coast was clear before heading off, muttering something through a mouthful of cream that sounded suspiciously like, "Just starting to understand girls… like geometry, they change all the rules just when you're starting to get it…"

Barbara laughed quietly to herself, setting her half-filled glass on the table and moving away from the crowd towards the restrooms. Maybe, assuming all the press's attention was focused on Dick and his latest girlfriend, she could do what she did last time and sneak out the window.

But of course…

"Barbara?" Dick's voice sounded from behind her.

Barbara spun around and smiled automatically, although the sight that met her eyes made her less than happy. "Hi Richard." She said casually, then glanced over at his… friend. His friend who was wearing the smallest scrap of silk a girl could wear and still technically be considered decent.

"This is Alexis." Dick introduced her. "Alexis, this is my friend Barbara." He beamed proudly, like a first grader showing off his soccer trophy.

Barbara took comfort in the thought that a soccer trophy was probably all the girl was to him.

Alexis wasn't just clinging onto Dick's arm—oh no, she was wrapped around him like a vice, her tiny body bowed against his in a way that was hardly appropriate. She was practically standing on his toes, simpering and playing with Dick's hair. She looked up at Barbara and smiled falsely.

"Dicky? Who's this?" She asks, the red-lipped smile frozen on her face.

"Barbara and I have been friends since high-school." Dick explained.

The girl's ruby-red talons skated territorially up and down Dick's arms, and she nodded slowly.

"It's nice to meet you." Barbara said politely, offering her hand.

Barbara got an easy read on this one. The girl was probably pretty intelligent, at least academically. She got into the college Daddy taught at easily and went into business. Slightly socially aware, but not particularly nice.

"How are you?" Alexis asked robotically, not waiting for a reply before moving her hands back to "Dicky's" jet black hair to resume grooming.

"She's lovely." Barbara deadpanned.

"Alexis, do you mind if Barbara and I dance for a while?" Dick asked kindly, removing the girl's pincer-like fingernails from his hair.

"What?" Barbara's head snapped up, and her eyes fixed on his. "I'm not dancing with you."

"Oh. Well if you're not going to dance with Bethany…" Alexis's smile crept back onto her make-up-caked face.

"Sure she is." Dick replied, speaking for her.

"My name is _Barbara_." She scowled at Alexis. "And you can dance with _Dicky_. I'm not."

"Sure you are." Dick smirked.

"Richard—" Barbara frowned.

"Hang on a sec, Barb. So, Alexis, is that okay? I just haven't had a lot of time—"

"Hang on," Barbara interrupted. "_I_ mind."

"Course you don't. I'm irresistible." Dick teased, giving her his famous Grayson wink and Robin smile. "So Alexis…?"

"Dicky…" The blonde pouted for a moment. Then she brightened almost instantly, giggling as his hand slid a little lower around her waist. "Okay… well, promise me you'll find me afterwards."

Dick pressed his lips against her ear and said something that Barbara probably did not want to hear, and Alexis giggled, waving at Barbara before (finally) departing.

"Whoa, hold on there, _Dicky_." Barbara put a hand on his chest as he started to move forwards.

Dick smirked. "C'mon, Barbie. One dance. You at least owe me that."

"What are you talking about? And don't call me Barbie."

"Or what?" He grinned down at her devilishly, and Barbara was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how close they were. His chest was almost touching hers, and she had to remind herself that this was _arguing,_ not _banter_. The two were very different things.

"You really want me to continue with a follow-up threat?" Barbara raised an eyebrow.

Dick laughed, taking her by the hand and attempting to drag her out onto the center of the room, which was reserved for dancing. "C'mon Barb. I let you get off scot-free for messing with me on last week's mission."

"Oh, is that what this is about?" Barbara scoffed so loudly that the drunken couple waltzing next to them stumbled a little in surprise. "You always let me off, no matter what I do." She pointed out.

"True." Dick didn't try to deny it. "But come on. It was an honest mistake. I just happened to mention that Alpha was an all-female squad. That was no reason to bite my head of, Gordon."

"Oh please. There was no 'head-biting' Grayson. I simply ridiculed you in front of a team, lost the girls' respect for you, and got away with it too. Sent a pretty clear message to the kids."

Dick huffed a laugh and suddenly dropped his head affectionately onto her shoulder, grinning into her neck. "You're funny." He said close to her ear.

"Richard…" Barbara sighed, threading her fingers through his hair.

"I know, I know." Dick sighed too, exasperated, and pulled away. He pinned her tapered, satin-clad waist to his and took one of her hands. "You look beautiful, by the way."

"Liar." Barbara smirked. "I barely remembered to_ brush_ my hair, let alone dress it. The only make up I could find was lip-gloss that's been in my drawer since third grade, and as for my dress… well, let's just say that this thing hasn't seen the sun since before 'The Breakfast Club' was in theaters. It was my mom's."

"I still love it on you." Dick grinned.

"Thanks." She crinkled her nose and smiled back. The dress itself wasn't too shabby—it was sleeveless and form-fitting, a simple design of worn silk without any gaudy sequins or lace or frills. It was just nothing special. The kind of gown no one ever looked twice at. Pale purple silk to her ankles. It was like Barbara herself. Modest, humble and understated. Maybe that's why Dick liked it.

"Almost makes me forget about our last real conversation—during which you caused one of the most awkward moments in bat-family history." Dick joked.

Barbara arched an eyebrow skeptically. "I thought the most awkward moment in bat-family history was when Bruce gave Tim _'the talk."_

Dick laughed and snickered over at his brother, who was currently cowering underneath the dessert table from the rich daughters of Bruce's 'friends.' "Ah, that's right. Well, that moment was a close second to Tim's sex-talk with Bruce."

"That poor boy." Barbara remarked. "With those kind of social skills, he'll never get anywhere with Cassie. Or any girl, really."

Dick wasn't listening. "Mmm. You smell nice." He buried his face in her neck again, and Barbara could feel the sudden pull in her heart that made a red flag go up in her brain. She knew she was in trouble now.

"Richard… stop." She set her hands on his arms. "We've been over this." She felt light, playful kisses brushing against her collarbone, and she bit back a giggle of pleasure as she felt the eyes of some of the other people dancing turning towards them critically. "Dick, there are people watching." She murmured.

Dick groaned in frustration and pulled away. "Is that what this is about? People watching?" He looked around and slipped one hand around her hip, pulling her away from the floor, away from the crowd, into the darkest corner he could find. It was located in a safe, quiet spot beneath the staircase, just out of earshot from nosy reporters. "Because no one would have to know, the press, the team, Bruce, whoever. I don't care, Barbara, whatever you want, just—"

"No." Barbara answered automatically. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?" His blue eyes blazed into her, but his tone softened. "Barbara, I don't know if your… if you're just playing with me, or I'm missing something, or what…" He sighed. "Look. I know things have been rough between us ever since… ever since Tula died."

"Ever since Wally and Artemis left the team, Kaldur betrayed us, and I _let_ Tula die." Barbara nodded. "Yes, if that's what you're referring to, Dick."

"Barbara… no one blames you, you know that." He reached out to touch her face. "Karen and Megan were there. They both saw what happened, there was nothing any of you could have done… she was dead before she hit the ground, Barbara."

"I know." Barbara gritted out. "And anyways, we're bats, right? And bats don't have_ feelings_."

Dick tensed at this. He didn't answer for a moment. She saw the glitter in his eyes and prepared for a dramatic change in the conversation. "I wouldn't say that." He breathed, lowering his mouth to her ear.

Barbara found her traitorous arms slinking around his neck, once again letting herself start to melt against his hard, warm body, pulsing heat and safety and calm with every heartbeat. "You are such a pest." She mumbled into his collarbone. "So needy."

"I resent that, Gordon."

"Whatever Grayson."

Dick pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her neck. "I love you. More than anything else in the world. Always have. Always will." He babbled happily against her skin. "You _know_ I do."

Barbara's fingers dug into his shoulders and she held him as tightly as she could, hating herself for not being able to respond. She hurled abuse, calling herself everything under the sun and reveling in wave after wave of self-loathing. She wanted to tell him. So, so badly, she wanted to find somewhere quiet, away from all the noise and color and commotion, to pour out her heart and soul and have him kiss her, touch her, take her, the way she only allowed on his birthday… but she continues to hate herself.

_Weak, pathetic, ungrateful, untrusting, selfish, undeserving…_ She continues her mental list of self-hate-mail and she wishes she could kick herself.

At this point, however, Dick had learned not to expect a response. He pulled away a moment later, grinning despite the obvious hurt in his eyes. "So… I've got to get back to Alexis, then."

"Yeah." Barbara smiled and nodded, smoothing the crumpled folds of her dress. "Yeah, have fun."

"Thanks, BG."

"Sure thing, Boy Wonder."

* * *

**A/N—yeah, I know. A little weird for me to include Tula in this particular story-line—but the idea struck me and I had an idea for a future chapter on it. The way I see it is that Barbara and Tula were never particularly close, however, on an all-girl mission, Tula—well, you'll find out in the next chapter. Please let me know what you think, especially if you think I got the characters wrong. I worry about that very often.**


	2. Flashbacks

**Disclaimer—I hate having to write this, but fine. I don't own Young Justice.**

**Rating—T**

**A/N—Hello again! Thanks so much for all the reviews and follows, you are very nice people. This chapter will hopefully explain some of the more questionable parts of this story, and you'll get to see what the story arch is all about. In the comics, which I try to stay very close to, Barbara has an insane brother named James who I just love to drag into stories. So for those of you who don't know, he is an actual character. I did not make him up. Let me know what you think of him. Sorry if this chapter seems a bit dark and dramatic, I was watching a really, really sad movie. (The Iron Giant gets me every time.)**

**(PS: Someone asked me about the title—Intrinsic means something that is inherent, basic, deep rooted and underlying—a natural instinct or key. You'll figure out why this is the title later on—I haven't gotten to that yet. If you haven't already looked into it, I have two other stories, 'Outsecure,' and 'She gets away with everything.')**

* * *

Barbara Gordon was sometimes considered the team phycologist. At the age of eighteen, she could pull apart someone's problems and put them back together so they fit like clockwork. She helped Garfield with his history and Spanish homework. She sorted out Cassie's arguments with her mother. She even managed to coerce Conner into discussing his 'daddy issues.' She had helped him learn to manage his anger, something everyone else had been sure wouldn't be resolved by anything but time.

Of course, being the big sister guru of infinite wisdom could have its ups and downs.

"I mean, it's not _my _fault La'gaan asked me out almost directly after Conner and I broke up. I mean, Conner was the one who _suggested_ the breakup. He has no right to be jealous."

"Mmm-hmmm." Barbara tried to sound interested, soaking her tea-bag in her cup and staring at the counter top. She had been listening to Megan vent for the past half-hour while Megan made lunch for the team.

"And he's still acting like this is somehow _my_ fault—well forgive me for moving on when he clearly has not."

"Yep. Got it. You've totally moved on." Barbara smirked at the Martian out of the corner of her eye.

"Exactly." Megan said vehemently, slamming a plate down on the counter and flipping six grilled-cheese sandwiches off the frying pan.

"Uh… Megan—" Cassie began tentatively, drawing a sandwich off her plate. "Can I go back to training now? The rest of the team is probably—"

"And it's not like I'm the only girl out there." Megan continued fervently, stabbing toothpicks down through each sandwich half, narrowly missing Cassie's fingers. "Conner could have gotten a new girlfriend, I wouldn't have cared. He's just so stubborn—"

"Do you want my advice or not?" Barbara groaned loudly, picking up her sandwich of swiss on rye.

Megan calmed down. "Yes." She said meekly.

"Megan, the facts are fairly obvious." Barbara said matter-of-factly, leaning one elbow on the table and taking a sip of her tea. "First thing you need to know is that men are simple creatures." She warily looked over at Impulse, on the other side of the kitchen, who was attempting to balance a spoon on the end of his nose. "Some are simpler than others."

Megan looked around to make sure that no one was listening. "But… I just can't understand what's going on in Conner's head."

"He's probably thinking the same thing about you." Barbara shrugged. "The reasons for people falling out are usually fairly simple—I categorize them into three areas—jealousy, misunderstanding, and miscommunication. To me, your issues with Conner seem to mainly be the third."

Megan frowned. "So… you're saying that we should just talk things out?"

"Basically." Barbara shrugged again. "And I know that Superboy isn't exactly into the whole worldly sharing of feelings thing, but it's better than going on for the rest of your lives hating each other. If you can't salvage your relationship, fine. But at least try to stay friends, okay?"

Megan nodded slowly. "Okay. Thanks, Barb."

"Anytime." Barbara said casually, waving to both Megan and Cassie as they headed for the training room with a plate piled high with sandwiches. Impulse followed at their heels like an excited puppy about to receive a treat.

Barbara picked at her sandwich, her mind flooded with memories of the night before.

_"I love you. More than anything else in the world. Always have, always will. You _know_ I do."_

Barbara groaned aloud and dropped her sandwich back onto her plate, pressing her fingers to her temples and scrunching her eyes shut, as if this could erase the memory.

She couldn't be with him. Not now. Everyone who came near her either hurt her or got hurt. And it was all because of _him_. Her father was an exception. He could understand, because he went through it too—being afraid to get close to people, afraid to let them in, to let them know…

Barbara was terrified for anyone to find out about James.

_Cool air, soft wind, dry sand swirling in clouds near the entrance to the tunnels. They move like shadows through the rocky walls that make up the catacombs, sinking further and further down into the earth, far beneath the surface of the Quaraqi desert._

No, no, no, no, _don't have the flashback_. She pled with herself. She had seen it to many times already, relived it night after night, endured the torment of what she could have done to save Tula—she was done. She would not torture herself with another vision. But the colors already were starting to flicker behind her eyelids.

_Three other members of her team surround her, an Atlantian with red hair and a bird-sized girl, hovering near her ear. Miss Martian, she knows, is not too far away, but has melted into the shadows with her camouflage. An instinct at this point. Already she can hear the noises start to fade, and she knows that the Injustice League is moving farther away. Not too far for them to track, luckily. Even though they hadn't expected to get this far on the mission, Barbara remembers that she's still technically in charge. She hisses orders through clenched teeth._

_"Bumblebee, scout ahead. Be careful and whatever you do, make sure they don't see you. Megan, patrol the perimeter and see if there are any other escape routes incase this one is blocked. Try not to get lost." Her voice is quiet, but commanding, and the other two girls obediently melt back into the shadows._

_She feels a twinge of fear at the thought that it is just them tonight. She's not helpless, far from it. She doesn't need anyone else's protection. But tonight, Barbara feels the familiar sensation of dread, fearful that one of her friends might get hurt._

_Barbara shakes her head to clear it, knowing it's stupid and silly for her to wish for him now. But as confident as she is that she can manage herself, she wishes that Dick were here. Not to protect her, but to comfort her. Reassure her that her fears and doubts are wrong. Nothing else will go wrong with the mission. _

_No one is going to die tonight. _

"No." Barbara presses her palms against her ears and bows over the counter top. "No, not again. Stop it. Stop it." She feels stupid talking to herself, but the feeling is almost immediately replaced with bitter dread at the memories that flash before her.

_At Karen's signal, she races forwards into the darkness, hearing their pleas for help. They've been found out, as usual, and they need back up._

_The game of weaving between tunnels and passageways is an easy one, one she used to play with her little brother James before she played it with the bat family in training. One where she chased the scruffy, red-headed toddler around coffee tables instead of boulders, through narrow hallways and tables and chairs instead of these damned tunnels._

_That was before James went quiet. That was before… _

_She can't finish the thought._

_The passages begin slant downwards suddenly, making her lose her footing and forcing her to use the light built into the ear of her cowl, potentially giving away her position. It doesn't matter, anyways. The team of villains knows they're here now._

_When she reaches the room, she feels as if all the air has been sucked from her lungs. The room is massive, filled with more soldiers and robots and enemies than she imagined anyone would have the time to assemble. She can't see much beyond the chaos of fighting going on around the edges of the room, but she can make out shadows of faces in the dim light. They're smirking, triumphant, laughing down at the war raging on far beneath their feet._

_"Batgirl, a little help!" Karen yelps, whizzing out of the way of at least a dozen Quaraqi soldiers. "Where's the rest of the team?"_

_Before Barbara can answer that everything is offline, she's assaulted with a rain of gunfire that has her lurching back into the safety of the shadows. After that, she fights, falling into the easy, half-aware style of fighting that Nightwing and Batman had taught her in her early days of wearing the cowl—a dance that she's learned so well by now, she could do it in her sleep. Her thoughts are focused on the rest of the team. Where are they? While she is sure her own safety, along with Megan's and Karen's is secure, she has no idea what is going to happen to Tula. Where is the rest of the team?_

_And then there's his voice in her ear, through their communicator, strained and static and desperate. _"Batgirl!...shk… enough….reinfor- gah! Batgirl, do you copy! Send alpha back, there are too many— shkkkk." _The communicator went dead._

_She looks up and sees Megan fighting. And not for the first time, she has to wonder what the hell these crime-bosses are _paying _these soldiers, because with what Me'gann's dishing out, any man in his right mind would have dropped the gun and run screaming from the tunnels. She's both amazed and intimidated by the cruel display—soldiers are roughly ripped away from their ranks, thrown against walls and sometimes slammed into each other in mid-air._

_"Megan!" She shouts. "Could you at least—" She's cut off as another soldier swings his gun at his head and she has to pause for breath—and to punch the guy's lights out. "—_try_ to be a little less brutal?"_

_Megan calls back an apology before a blur of white and green knocks her out of the air, and she slams against the nearest wall._

_Is that Virtigo? Captain Cold? She can't see, can't hear, everything is happening too fast. Like on a spinning carnival ride, when you can't tell which was is up or where you are or what's happening. There are flashes of light, color, voices. She punches at everything that moves._

_And then she hears Nightwing's voice, and everything else starts to settle down._

_"Alpha, retreat and regroup! Beast boy, Kid Flash, help Bumble-bee and Miss M. I've got Savage."_

_"Where's Tula? Tula!" Kaldur is shouting over the chaos._

_She thinks she hears the faint murmur of a familiar voice. Not's Tula's—Tula's voice is soft and calming and sweet-sounding, like water lapping at the shore. This voice is hazy with memories and mystery, reminding her of the experience of seeing an old cartoon you loved as a kid, but you can't remember what it's called. Finding a children's book you insisted upon having read to you every night, rediscovered in the attic after a decade of being forgotten. The voice is like that. Somehow, it almost seems childlike._

_That's when she sees him. His small build and scarlet hair are marred by the darkness, but not enough for her not to recognize him. She'd recognize him anywhere. He is, after all, her brother._

_Maybe it would be a lie to say that she had ever really loved him. As a child, maybe she had formed a flimsy attachment out of sheer routine—she had just gotten so used to him. But even then, as a child of two or three, he had been distant. Unconnected. Loveless. She remembers how fascinated he was with sharp objects, remembers how he'd spend forever watching the pattern her mother's kitchen knife carved through the air when she was slicing vegetables or meat. She remembers how disturbingly delighted James had been in reaction to gore and violence._

_Now, it makes sense. As he holds the gun out to point at her teammate, his crooked toothy grin gleaming through the shadows, Barbara understands everything._

_Not a man. A monster._

_Kaldur is distracted, pinned beneath one of the robots and struggling to rise to his feet. James is watching both of them carefully, the barrel of the sleek, silver discus-launcher aimed at the writhing Atlantian's chest. It's an Atlantian weapon, originally formed by Black Manta himself. There's enough poison in one of those disks to kill six grown men in twenty seconds. But James isn't moving, nor is he showing any sign of wanting to move into action. He's waiting for something._

_Even if she had time to react, she couldn't have. She was too frozen, too stunned, too confused to have done anything but stand there._

_But someone else is fast enough. Someone else moves in time, shielding Kaldur's body with her own and taking the hit._

_Barbara sees a streak of red and blue and more red as the small, metal discus launches itself in Tula's chest. She can see what would have happened now, very clearly. If Tula hadn't moved, the way James had aimed the discus it would have missed Kaldur by at least six inches._

_But she does._

_For a moment, Tula stands on the spot, jerking a little and rocking back and forth. She looks down and sees the circle of metal implanted in her chest._

_Aqua girl crumples and falls into Kaldur's arms._

_Barbara's not sure how long the girl lasts. She can see Kaldur's lips moving, can see Tula whispering something close to his ear, her pale eyes glossy and dream-like. Then she goes limp._

_In that moment, Barbara could have killed James. She really could have. She could have turned then and sunken a batarang into her own brothers heart the way he had to her friend. She might have. But he's gone. Disappeared into thin air, the way he always does._

_Barbara's not sure how they escape that night. She's not sure how they all make it out alive. She doesn't remember fighting her way out._

_What she does remember is red, red, and more red, remembers Kaldur's wide sea-green eyes and his tortured scream of pain and rage. Remembers how Nightwing's voice broke over the communicator when he ordered a retreat. Remembers how nearly everyone had cried, the sound of wailing and confusion and teammates leaning on each other's shoulders._

_She remembers her brother's smile._

_Later, Nightwing will assure her that it wasn't her fault. He'll hold her in his arms, late at night, curled in his bed with the radio crackling some old, sad song from the forties or fifties or sixties or whatever. He'll try to coax her to eat something. He'll coo and hum and speak soothingly close to her ear, the way he knows she likes, but nothing will work. In an attempt to completely numb everything else out, they make love, but Barbara starts crying so they have to stop. He tells her that there was nothing she could have done._

_There was nothing she could have done? There was everything that she could have done. Empty words, even when they're being spoken by him._

_But he doesn't understand. He doesn't know about James._

_She's not really paying attention to what he's saying after that, but she doesn't have the energy to feel guilty about it. She's vaguely aware of words like, 'sorry,' and 'love' and 'sweetheart,' but mostly her name. Over and over again, 'Barbara,' like he wants to make sure it's really her, she's really there, that he won't lose her now like Kaldur's lost Tula._

_'Barbara, Barbara, Barbara…'_

"Barbara?" Dick's voice snaps her back into reality at an unpleasant speed, making her jerk and nearly whack her head off the cover of the stove.

She looks down at her body and realizes she's been in this position much too long, and her limbs are tense and cramped. Her head is in her hands, her ears still ringing from "Hey Wing-nut." She says, as casually as she can. "What's up?"

"Are… are you okay?" Dick, dressed in his civies, sets his plate down on the counter and frowns.

"Yeah, sure. I'm fine. Megan's been driving me nuts and I had a headache, that's all. What are you doing in here?" She hopes her voice doesn't sound too shaky.

"I wanted to see if you wanted to come into the training room with the others to eat. Tim worked out a way to watch a movie on the big computer screen—which we only use for missions, but hey. I figured it's a team bonding exercise, where's the harm?"

Barbara forced herself to smile, focusing on his crumpled black bangs just above his dark glasses so she wouldn't have to look at his eyes. "Sure. Sounds fun. Good to see you're letting up, oh dark and mysterious leader." She picked up her sandwich and tea, in one hand, swatting him playfully with the other.

"That's my girl."

* * *

**Okay, sorry if the flashback was a little hard to understand. I just wanted it to seem hazy and unorganized, because Barbara's thoughts were too uncoordinated to keep up with everything that was happening. Therefore, she couldn't be held responsible for Tula's death, really. Please let me know what you think of James, once again, I did not make him up. Clearly, I like taking references and ideas from the comic books. Be honest, and if no one likes the 'James' story arc, I will re-write this chapter with no hard feelings. Thanks!**


	3. Games

**disclaimer- i don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters **

**Hello! I'm back. Thank you, nice people, for all your reviews, faves, and follows. Especially, that you for all of the positive responses from those of you who don't even like James Junior in the stories. I'm not too fond of the James 'story arc' in the comics myself, so adding him into this story is kind of my way of changing the story to a plot I actually like. I've always loved James's character, but I'm developing it some more so that 'crazy' isn't his entire personality. See, this story is mainly Barbara centered, so I'm trying to drag her nemesis into the YJ universe. For those of you who don't like James, I hope you enjoy this version of him more. I've given him much more character. See, there's actually a reason I had him kill Tula instead of some other random villain, which some of you found odd because the two never really had any connection at all. It's all part of this insane plot I pulled from who knows where. Enjoy!**

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Barbara hadn't been expecting Artemis's surprise trip back, but she was more than happy to see the archer. She and the rest of the team had dragged Artemis aside to say hello, as Nightwing tried to usher her towards the zeta tubes impatiently.

"Okay guys, maybe we should get going." Barbara finally laughed, pulling a happy, chattering Karen away from Artemis by her elbow.

"We?" Artemis repeated, looking puzzled, obviously unaware that the red-head had made plans to come.

"Sure." Barbara shrugged. "Nightwing promised me I could be on the next big mission because he's been giving me really boring, easy ones lately."

"Oh." Artemis shrugged. "Fair enough."

Nightwing's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "What?" He asked slowly as the two girls started towards him, near the zeta tubes.

"Oh, look at that pout." Barbara teased. "No getting out of this one, Wing-nut! You promised."

Nightwing's eyes narrowed further. "What exactly did I promise?"

"I'm coming on this mission because you've been handing me rookie-level stake-outs every time I tell you I'm bored." Barbara said sweeping her hair back from her face. "You said I could come on the next big mission."

"Yeah, but not this mission." Nightwing said slowly, as if speaking to a toddler.

"Aw, come on Nightwing." Artemis laughed, waving to Conner and Megan as they headed for the bio-ship. "Let her come along. What could go wrong?"

"Don't say that, you'll jinx it!" Beast boy yelled, heading towards the zeta tubes with Karen in tow.

"Beast Boy, Bumblebee, where are you two headed?" Nightwing called.

"Stake out." Both answered unenthusiastically.

"Remember? You're sending us out to make sure Queen Bee's still not hanging around Star City." Karen reminded him.

"Good." Nightwing nodded shortly. He jerked his head in Barbara's direction, towards them. "You can go with them." He told her.

"What?" The noise that came out of Barbara's mouth was not human.

The other on-looking team members smirked and nudged each other and tried to hide their grins behind their hands. This was going to take a while.

Barbara moved her hands to her hips and gave Dick her best bat-glare. "You said that I could have the next big mission." She ground out in what she believed was a passive, civil voice.

"And now I'm telling you to go with Bumblebee and Beast Boy on stakeout." He responded in the same patronizing tone. He gestured towards the other two, who were now uncomfortably shifting back and forth and exchanging awkward glances. "Go."

"Are you kidding me?" Barbara said, her mouth falling open.

"No. Now go." Nightwing said with narrowed eyes, pointing towards the zeta tubes.

"I've been on stakeouts for the past six missions, you can't just—"

"I think I can, Batgirl, or do I have to remind you that I'm team leader and you _follow orders_?"

Garfield face-palmed and Karen groaned. Oh, so it was going to be another one of _those_ Batgirl/Nightwing "loud discussions." Or "screaming matches," as the rest of the team called them. Nightwing usually spoiled Batgirl on the team to the point where even some of the older league members noticed, but when it was a question of her safety, a fight usually broke out.

"Do I have to remind you that I was Batgirl long before I joined this team? I am perfectly capable of actually going on something a bit more extreme than a stakeout without getting hurt. I'm sure my fragile little body can handle it." Barbara snarled.

"Um… guys?" Artemis tried to cut in, but she was ignored flatly as Nightwing started to launch into another one of his "I am team leader and you'll do as I say" speeches.

Over the course of ten minutes, the debate got heated quickly, voices rising, fists clenching, and bat-glares clashing. Eventually, Batgirl admitted defeat (for probably the first time in her life,) and told Nightwing under her breath, "Go screw yourself," before turning on her heel and heading towards Karen and Garfield. Nightwing's expression had remained stony as he led Artemis with him towards the zeta tubes.

She brushed aside the nagging sensation in her brain, reminding her that although Dick was being unreasonable and unfair and overprotective, he was under a lot of stress and deserved her cooperation. On top of that, it was true that he was team leader, and she should at least pay him a little respect despite the circumstances.

"I think it's cute." Karen assured her, when they were sitting on the same rooftop looking down at the busy streets beneath them. The stakeout was obviously just to keep the team busy, as Queen Bee hadn't been spotted in Star City for nearly three months.

"What is?" Barbara asked distractedly.

Karen rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, girl. Don't tell me you haven't noticed how the boss lets you do whatever you want. You could get away with anything short of murder around here. Unless, that is, if your safety is at risk."

Barbara scoffed, trying to sound convincingly skeptical. "We argue all of the time."

"Just out of habit." Garfield cut in, looking bored. "You two have so much fun arguing. But neither of you enjoy it when it's because you want to do something dangerous, and the boss freaks out. Because then it's not a game. It's kind of weird to watch, honestly, but Karen's right. It's sweet." He looked up, suddenly, looking slightly horrified by the words that had come out of his mouth. "I need to start going on stakeouts with the _guys_." He decided.

"Come on, BG." Karen pressed. "We've all got time. Tell us how it is with the fearless leader."

Barbara sighed. "There's nothing to tell, really. We've been friends for a long time, and he gets a little overprotective sometimes. That's all."

The look Karen gave her was not one of belief. "Are you kidding?" She raised an eyebrow. "Girl, there are only so many times you can use that excuse before it gets worn out. You and the boss have something going on." She gave her friend a playful shove, and Barbara rolled her eyes.

"What makes you so sure?" She asked teasingly. If nothing else, Barbara loved to keep people guessing about her relationship with Dick. Half of the team was convinced that they were engaged, and the other half thought they hated each other's guts.

Karen, who was not convinced, leaned forwards and looked around, as if she expected someone to be dangling off the side of the building with their ears pricked, listening in to their conversation. "Are you two actually dating? Because that thing he has with Zatanna…" She looked scared to continue, as if she might offend Barbara if she did.

Barbara scoffed. "Please. Zatanna is hardly the only other one."

"What do you mean?" Karen's eyes widened.

"I mean that Nightwing has a lot of…_ lady friends_. Most of whom come over to visit him in the _evening _hours. And there's not a lot of talking involved during these visits."

Karen's jaw dropped. "Shut up. Nightwing? As in our team leader?"

"He gets around more than you'd think." Barbara smirked.

Garfield blinked and looked between the two of them. "I don't get it." He said blankly.

"Good." Both girls said together.

"No wonder you two aren't dating." Karen said.

"I have no problem with it, actually." Barbara said casually, staring down at the city streets with Garfield.

"Sooo… that doesn't bother you at all?" Karen raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know. Should it?" Barbara asked honestly.

Karen shook her head in clear disbelief and muttered something about 'crazy bats.'

"Well, he always got mad back when Robin used to flirt with you." Garfield said enthusiastically. "The second one, I mean."

Oh. He was talking about Jason Todd. The amusing, if dorky second Robin had flirted with her shamelessly at every opportunity, even going as far as kissing her on his fifteenth birthday and Dick had walked in on them, which had been both funny and awkward. She still remembered how Jason had roughly and smugly forced her into a kiss, and if it had been any day other than his birthday and he wasn't so damn good at it, he would have walked away from her having sustained some serious, permanent injuries. She only felt a little guilty when she saw the look on Dick's face, a confused mix of hurt, pain, and anger. He had given Jason the cold shoulder for a weak thereafter, much to Barbara's annoyance and Jason's pride at having something Dick didn't. But now—well, Dick had no right to be jealous, not with all of his other girlfriends.

She changed the subject away from her and Nightwing, for once, without actually meaning to. "I miss him." She said honestly.

"Who?" Garfield frowned, staring down at line after line of cars beneath the building.

"J—Robin. The second one. I miss him." Barbara said thoughtfully.

"Me too." Karen's shoulders slumped considerably. "He was so brave. He didn't deserve… well, I hope he's happy, wherever he is."

"To the organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Garfield quoted bravely.

Karen sniffed a little and looked at him endearingly. "That was sweet. Was it T.S. Elliot who said that?"

"Close. Albus Dumbledore."

Karen and Barbara both let out noises that were half-amused, half annoyed. Karen started dabbing at her already wet eyes. "Dammit, this mascara's supposed to be waterproof! I'm so sorry… just… I worry so often about all of you, with Tim and the kids out there… we don't even know who killed Tula, and whoever it was could still be out there. And then with Jason…"

Barbara interrupted quickly, hoping to change the subject away from Tula. "I know what you mean. It really opens your eyes to how vulnerable we all are."

Garfield's shoulders slumped. "My mom, Jason, Tula—you'd think I'd be used to it by now."

Karen wound an arm around his shoulders. "I know hon. And Batgirl… you should really cut Nightwing a break. He's only doing this because he cares about you."

"I know." Barbara said quietly. "I should."

There moment of silence was interrupted by the ring of Karen's communicator. "Hello?" She touched the button on the side of her mask. "Nightwing? Oh hi, we were just talking about you—" She smiled at Barbara's wide-eyed expression of horror. Barbara dragged a finger across her throat, signaling for Karen to zip it. And then Karen's expression twisted with confusion. "What? Say that again?" There was a pause. "No. No, no, no, that's not—that can't be right—"

"What?" Garfield tugged on Karen's sleeve like an impatient little kid. "What's wrong?"

Tears were pouring down Karen's face in earnest now, and she was shaking her head in disbelief. "No, no!"

"What is it?" Barbara asked, now almost as impatient as Gar.

"She's _dead_!" Karen shrieked, her voice cracking with misery. "Artemis is _dead_!"

* * *

As usual, it was dark when she reached his apartment. She usually only came here at night anyways, and she has a bit of trouble navigating her way up the metal-grate staircase thanks to the broken streetlamp by his house. He let her in after three knocks.

Dick looked surprisingly healthy, despite suffering the death of one of his closest friends. He was still wearing his civvies and dark glasses, the ones he was wearing when he finally came back to Mount Justice to be with the team… after telling Wally. Barbara shuddered again at the thought of how the speedster must be feeling now. She knew how she would feel, if it had been Dick…

"Hi, Barb." Dick said quietly. "I… wasn't expecting you over."

Barbara muttered something about 'you idiot,' before wrapping her arms around him in a death grip and burying her face in his neck. "I'm so sorry." She finally started to cry. Not as much for herself as for him. She cried for this poor, love-starved young man who's faced with death at every turn. "I'm so sorry." She repeats, stroking his hair lovingly and rubbing her tears into his jacket collar.

"Its okay, Barb." Dick sounded slightly choked, moving a hand to her lower back and pulling her inside his apartment. He closed the door behind them and just held her for a minute, the two of them leaning against each other and sharing each other's warmth.

After nearly an hour of trying to console the rest of the team, Barbara would have been happy to let herself fall into Dick's arms, let him care for and comfort her until she was strong enough to stop the flood of tears from her eyes.

But Dick needed her. Artemis was closer to him than she was Barbara, and Dick needed her right now. So Barbara led him to the bedroom and made him change out of his civvies into a t-shirt and sweatpants. She pulled one of his good dress-shirts out of his drawer and slipped into it, letting him button it and kiss his way up her body before his head drops to her neck, exhausted. "She's dead." He breathed, sounding like he's just been hit with a truck. "She's really gone."

Barbara let out this little whine of misery at seeing him like this, and she pulled him back into her arms before they tumbled into his bed, wrapped around each other and breathing deeply.

"I love you Barbara." He breathed. "That… that could have been you, today; I could have lost you if…"

"Shhhh." Barbara spoke softly, stroking his hair away from his forehead and pulling her head down to rest against her collarbone. He snuggled against her, his head fitting into the crook of her neck. It was a bit uncomfortable, with him practically lying on top of her, but Barbara couldn't bring herself to care. "You tried to save her, sweetheart." She cooed close to his ear, and he let out a small whine in response. "It wasn't your fault. You tried."

"Love you." Dick mumbled against her neck, pulling her against him and nuzzling her neck.

Barbara opened her mouth to reply, but the words stuck in her throat. Memories of a few nights before stuck in her mind.

When Barbara was younger, her whole family used to play this game over dinner. They had long since stopped asking, "what did you do today," or "how was your day," mainly because James often sat in his bedroom and read and drew pictures and shut himself off from everyone else, and he was hypersensitive to the fact. Another issue was that while Barbara could babble on and on about school and the other kids, it bothered James to hear this because he didn't have any friends besides his sister and the family cat. Their mother, who had been upset by this, declared that a topic for discussion and debate would be announced every night, and everyone had to give their opinions on the subject. They wrote ideas on cards and kept them in the napkin holder, and draw a new one every night. They would talk about politics and controversial subjects of law, about news stories and history and famous books.

Looking back on it, Barbara was surprised at the memory that much of what James Junior offered for discussion wasn't exactly gruesome. He was curious, mainly, about human nature. He wanted to know the entire family's opinions on when they felt that killing was acceptable. He wanted to know what American wars the family considered justifiable. He was perversely fascinated with the dark side of humanity, although at the time everyone in her family had labeled him as curious. Her father had said he'd make a great psychologist someday.

Two nights ago, while having dinner with her father, the topic for discussion was James Junior.

When he was fifteen, James had disappeared with a promise that he'd get back at her and their father for… something. Whatever it was. He was going to get back at them, and everyone they loved. That night, Barbara and her father had discussed the youngest Gordon's parting threat.

"Honey, wherever James is now, he's on his own. I promise you, there is no way the Injustice League, this so-called Light or even the Reach would have anything to do with a fifteen year old kid, no matter how… well, it's been a year, and none of our detectives have found him yet. He's in hiding, Barbie. But I think we're safe." Her dad had said.

Barbara's father never directly called James Junior crazy.

"I still don't think it's safe for us to get too close to anyone right now." Barbara said. "Dad, there's been no sign of him. You're right, thinking he may be hiding, but I don't know if…" She had seen the expression on her father's face and her stomach jerked. "You think he's dead?"

He had nodded. Barbara, still unconvinced, had guiltily hoped he was right.

And even now, after her father's tireless years of searching for James and the empty threats that remained, Barbara didn't feel safe telling people she loved them. It was engrained too deeply for her to be able to say it to anyone, even her dad, without fear. She feels like he would know.

He would. He's James, after all.

It was a reflex, how her jaw tightened and her muscles tensed and her heartbeat sped up when Dick told her he loved her. It was instinctive, a very part of her being that made her afraid that something would happen to him, and this loving, trusted friend would slip through her fingers like water. So she doesn't answer. It's not safe. The knowledge has and forever will be, intrinsic.

She hates herself more than she thought was humanly possible.

The slow rise and fall of Dick's body tells her he has fallen asleep, and Barbara presses a kiss to his hair. She bites her lip and all but mouths the words, as if afraid that James is hiding in one of the darkened corners, ready to spring out at them. _"I love you."_ Barbara's voice is barely a whisper, almost inaudible to her own ears. _"I love you, Richard."_

* * *

**_A/N- _Not much of a James, chapter, I just foreshadowed a few things hopefully a few of you will catch. In the next chapter, Barbara will start to realize the mystery and she'll question her sanity. Fun! BTW, just so everyone knows, I update based on how many views a get. Not RE-views, don't worry, I'm not that bitchy author who tries to blackmail my readers into reviewing. I just like to make sure that people are into this before I write a chapter, because I'm busy working on a few other things and I like to know that people care. Once again, i only check how many views, as in how many people actually visit this story, not reviews. Thanks for sticking with this guys, I'll update soon!**


	4. Files

**Hello friends! I would have posted sooner, except yesterday I somehow got stung twice on the back of the neck by a yellow jacket. Hurts like a bitch. Sorry, but I was in no mood to write just then, but I had Outsecure already written so I uploaded. Just so you know, I've kind of skipped a couple of episodes, going straight from Darkest to Before the Dawn, because a story centered around Barbara isn't going to be too exciting if Barbara's not in it. And I did the research—Barbara had no significant part afterwards in the show up until Before the Dawn. (Seriously, what is it with CN?) Oh well. Hope you enjoy!**

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Barbara woke up with a terrible headache and a faint recollection of something tragic occurring. When the memory of Artemis's death hit her, it hit her _hard._ So hard that she moaned aloud and her head immediately fell back onto her pillow—wait, not her pillow. Dick's pillow. His arm was heavily pressing against her waist, his face still buried in her neck and his breathing tickling her skin. The arm wrapped around his shoulders had fallen asleep. She looked down at the white blanket covering their entangled bodies, lined with slats of sunlight shining in through the broken window blind.

She looked at the clock. Seven forty-nine. And of course, the team had a mission scheduled for today. With a groan she pulled herself upright, tugging Dick's heavy, limp form up with her. "Richard. Come on buddy. Time to get up."

Dick's eyes fluttered open lazily and he tried to pull her back down onto the bed. He mumbled something about 'sleep' and 'team' and 'tired.'

Feeling guilty about having to drag him out of bed so soon after what had happened, Barbara let him pull her back down and gave him another ten minutes before waking him up again. "Richard, sweetheart, do you just want to stay home today?" She asked as his head dropped sleepily back against the pillows. "I could tell everyone else you're sick…"

"No, it's okay Barb." Dick sighed against her collarbone. He wound his arms around her one more time, and for a moment all she could feel were his soft lips on her neck and his hot skin pressing against hers. "Thanks for staying with me last night. I know that's kind of like… a once-a-year thing, for us... thank you."

"Of course." Barbara crooned, kissing his forehead. "Whatever you want." There was a moment of silence as her words hung in the air, finally interrupted by the incessant, brilliant sunlight pouring in through the dusty window.

"Can we take a shower?" Dick asked, drawing away and slipping out from between the sheets.

Barbara nodded, once, and they both ended up standing under the pouring hot water together. Dick's head still rested on her shoulder, leaning on her, as if her tiny body were refuge. As if she was safe enough to hold him up easily. She loved when he overestimated her like that.

Barbara reached behind Dick and wrenched the faucet to the left, so the temperature was even hotter than it already was, and Dick let out a small, half-hearted laugh. Though it seldom happened, usually on Dick's birthdays or special occasions, Barbara would spend the morning after with Dick, and they'd zeta to Mount Justice together later. While they were getting ready in the mornings, they often showered together, (If Dick's puppy-dog eyes had anything to do with it) and always had arguments, (although some may consider them battles) over the hot and cold faucets. Dick liked the water scalding hot, and Barbara liked the temperature to be a little cooler to help her wake up. Thus, chaos usually ensued when the two showered, and both parties would stumble out both frustrated and disgruntled from the rapid changing of the water temperature from hot to cold.

Dick hummed lowly in appreciation as Barbara turned the handle slowly until the entire shower was so fogged with steam, Barbara could hardly see her hand in front of her face, let alone breathe easily. Her skin burned and she was uncomfortably hot and it was getting hard to breathe, but Dick's fingers were digging into her sides and his head was still on her shoulder and it was worth it.

For breakfast, there were some eyebrows raised as she pulled a box of kid's cereal out of the cabinet and poured him a bowlful of it dry, since he didn't have any milk. "You need to go shopping, Boy Wonder." She said lightly, sitting down with him next to the couch and picking out of the bowl of cereal on his lap.

"I know. Quit hogging the marshmallows." He said teasingly, and Barbara found herself pulling back in surprise.

"You seem… back to normal." She observed.

Dick didn't answer right away. He studied his TV remote with feigned interest for a moment longer before looking back at her with a completely different objective. "So I was thinking about the mission today," he began.

_How can he be thinking about the mission? Artemis just died. Did he really just forget about how upset and… and… damaged he is?_

"Infiltrating the Reach isn't going to be easy, but we need to get our teammates back. You know the basic outline of the plan so far as to how we're going to get in, but the roles haven't exactly been assigned yet." Dick goes on in his usual stoic, droning, mission assigning voice.

_He hasn't even cried yet. Not that I know of, anyways. But that's still wrong, the guy should cry over the death of one of his oldest and closest friends… it's probably unhealthy not to._

"…So you'll be leading Alpha." Dick finishes.

Barbara choked on a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "I'm sorry, what?" She turns to stare at him in shock. Dick rarely had her lead missions. When he did, it was because with her skills considered, it would be absolutely ridiculous not to. Like that squad he sent to Bialya. That had been a pleasant surprise for her, but the cases like that were rare. He never put her in danger unless there was absolutely no way around it, and she had given him a necessary kick in the shins.

"I… is that okay?" Dick blushed a little and ran a hand though his hair. "I mean, I don't want you to feel pressured and if you don't wan

t to lead it, that's fine, I just thought you'd appreciate—"

"Appreciate? God yes, Dick, I appreciate it, I just don't get why… if you…" She shook her head a bit, as if to clear it. "Thank you, Richard. I… I think I can handle that."

"I know you can handle it." Dick scoffs. He glances at her warily. "I just… Barb, I know I've been a little… hypersensitive to putting you in danger, recently, but it isn't because I don't trust you or I doubt your abilities." He looked down, and Barbara thought again how beautiful he was—even with his skin flushed bright red from the scalding water and his hair still damp and dripping.

Barbara slipped her hand into his. "I know. And… I'm sorry I'm such a little kid about that. Yesterday I was just… childish and a real pain about going on the mission with Artemis, and I shouldn't have done that. But honestly Richard, I don't need protecting."

Dick let out a noise that was half a scoff, half a laugh. "Jeez Barb, I know. I swear, to this day, there's no other girl I know of who can actually take down a super villain using only a kid's hokey stick and bag of potato chips."

Barbara didn't know if it would be insensitive to laugh so soon after the tragedy he had suffered, so she settled for a wan smile. "Good times." She nudged him affectionately.

"But I love you. So I worry. Especially after…" His voice trailed off and neither of them bothered to finish the sentence. They didn't need to.

Especially after Jason. After Tula. After Artemis.

Not for the first time since the Archer's death, Barbara feels tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. But she swallows them down and smiles at Dick. She can't lose it, not now. Not when he's going through so much. She decides he must be in shock, and when it finally does it him, she'll need to be there for him. When he realizes that Artemis is really never coming back, it'll hurt.

She only hopes she'll be enough to hold him together.

(File scene)

The mission turns out to be a lot more difficult than she thought. _There's a shock_. She thinks to herself. _Gee, when has a mission ever gone wrong?_

In the Reach's (what's she supposed to call it? A stronghold? A headquarters? She decides that lair seems appropriately evil,) almost the entire team was trapped or fighting Black Beetle or both.

"Bumblebee! Impulse! Robin! A little help over here!" Cassie shrieks from somewhere further down the hall. There's a shout of pain and the thwack of metal against wood.

The rest of her squad turns to look at her, Karen, Bart, and Tim. "Go help her." Barbara says, pointing towards the fight between Shimmer and Wondergirl at the end of the hall. "I've got to see if I can find Blue."

"What about the boss?" Bart asks, looking around for Nightwing. "I thought he was here a second ago—? Do you think he maybe got—"

"He's fine." Barbara said surely. "He's just doing his disappearing act again. Go with them!"

She watches her teammates shoot out of sight around the corner, and almost immediately heads back the way they had come. She was sure she saw something—some sort of library that might give them information on the Reach. She pulled her communicator up to her mouth and told Nightwing where she was going, at the same time knocking out about three of the Reaches (Again, what does she call them? Henchmen, minions, goons?) She settles for calling them goons and punches another one's lights out.

She doesn't know how long this will go on. Not just this fight, but the battle. Between the heroes and the Reach. She doesn't know how long they'll last, how many others are going to die before they finally manage to convince humanity that they're actually in danger. She thinks of this when she sees the new villain, Tigris—a young woman with dark hair in an orange and black costume, as if the name 'Tigris' did not convey her theme enough.

Then again, _Batgirl_, with her cowl and cape, is hardly one to talk. She evades the new villainess easily—almost too easily. She wonders if it's just because the woman is new to hero-fighting, because after Barbara lands a good kick and a punch to the stomach, the woman is down along with the rest of her goon reinforcements.

Barbara races past them, looking for the door she had seen on their way over. She finds it, half-blasted open by a stray laser beam and hanging off by one hinge. One good kick makes it cave completely. If Nightwing had been here, or god forbid _Batman_, they would have chastised her for charging into the room so recklessly. But when Barbara finally forces her way inside, what she sees is hardly what she was expecting.

It's empty, fortunately, but still nothing like a library. Instead of shelves, the room is lined with row after row of holographic files, all stacked on top of each other. They resemble the dashes of the yellow lines of a highway, stretching up to the ceiling and lining the room.

Barbara's first instinct was to reach out and touch one of the silvery-blue rectangles, but after nearly five years of being the Batgirl, she had learned that you don't simply walk up to some unidentified alien object and stick your hand in it. Very bad idea.

She wondered if the files responded to vocal commands. Observing the little numbers and symbols carved into the stone beneath the flies, she looks up and calls out, "File eighteen, plans for Reach Invasion."

Nothing happened. The files glowed a little brighter, as if to tease her.

"Computer, system override." She said, using the same command used to

_"Voice confirmation. Translate to English. File forty-nine."_

"No, file eighteen." Barbara corrected, bemused. "I said file eighteen."

One of the rectangular panels of light moved away from the others, moving down to where Barbara stood near the center of the room. She read the label on it aloud. "Young Justice League, team files and known informational status."

Barbara didn't know why the file had come down, but she found herself flicking through the holographic pages that told all the Reach knew about the team.

"Wondergirl, adolescent, female. Sbilities; strength 8, intelligence 4, speed 4. Other attributes include flying, carrying heavy objects for long distances, and very noticeable strength while flying." Barbara read aloud. "Weaknesses; subject is restless and impulsive, with poor stealth skills, low stamina and balance levels. Location, unknown. Status, alive."

With a flick of her finger, she brought up another file, this one a detailed description of Jaime. "Blue Beetle, adolescent, male. Abilities; strength 6, intelligence 4, speed 7. Other attributes include flying, armor that is almost impenetrable, and an impressive array of artillery from the scarab on his back. Weaknesses, without the scarab, Blue Beetle is a very vulnerable and average adolescent male human, making him an easy target. Location, unknown. Status, alive."

Barbara was muttering aloud through every file she found. She skimmed through Beast Boy, Bumblebee's, and Superboy's files, ignoring the noises of fighting outside the door. She needed to know why the computer had given her this file. Everyone on the computer was identified as unknown location and known status—alive.

And that's when she found it. Another team file. His file.

Jason Todd. His picture, in the corner of the page. His name, right beneath it.

Barbara read the information aloud in a breathy whisper. "Robin, B010, adolescent, male. Abilites; strength 5, intelligence 4, speed 8. Other attributes include impressive stamina, balance and dexterity, as well as equipment and weapons similar to that of his mentor, Batman. Weaknesses, subject is easily provoked, with a serious temper that can often leave him unguarded. Subject is often overconfident and underestimates opponents."

Barbara stumbled over the next four words. "Location, _known._ Status…_ alive._"

The words staggered her, and for a moment Barbara found herself wasting time, staring at the screen and trying to force the words to sink in. This must be a mistake. They must have meant Tim. They must have gotten the two Robins mixed up. But the description of weaknesses was proof—Tim was never volatile or unpredictable, let alone easily provoked with a temper.

Her fingers moved of their own accord, flicking over to the page with Nightwing's picture, then Artemis's, which pronounced her dead at the hands of Kaldur.

And then another file. Tula's.

Barbara ran through the presented information, from the description of her abilities to the weaknesses. And then again, she had to wonder if this was some sort of mistake. A joke. Or was she supposed to read this? While everyone else besides Artemis had been pronounced alive, she had expected Tula's at least to read 'deceased.'

Barbara breathed the words on the screen aloud. "Tula, location known. Status… alive."

_"Batgirl!" _Nightwing's voice interrupted her thoughts, and Barbara's hand fell away from the file. Barbara raised her communicator to her mouth and answered that she was there.

_"We need you! Bumblebee's down, get back to the bioship, quickly!"_

Barbara turned away from the files and ran—out through the smashed metal door and towards the sounds of fighting far off in the distance.

What happened after that was a blur of adrenaline and voices and colors. Black Beetle nearly killed Blue and vice versa. Cassie got slammed against the wall so many times, she nearly blacked out on the flight home. And of course, what had they uncovered about the Reach? Absolutely nothing. They all just barely escaped with their lives.

(More awkward than Nightwing at a college party.)

(My chiropractor is going to have a field day.)

On the flight home, she caught sight of Megan's expression and her stomach again started to tie itself into knots. "What's wrong with her?" She muttered to Karen.

Karen looked up and pressed her lips together thoughtfully. "I don't know. She's been like that ever since she mind-wiped Kaldur. You'd think she'd be happy."

"I would." Barbara scoffed. "He had it coming to him."

She didn't know if it was her imagination, but she saw Nightwing's shoulders tense. She walked over to him and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. He jumped a little at the touch, then turned his head to look up at her. "Batgirl? Is something wrong?"

"I need to talk to you. Can you call a team meeting when we get back?"

Nightwing looks startled, the whites of his mask widening. "Wondergirl has to go home and Beast Boy said that Miss Martian may need some sleep. But… do you need to? Is it important?"

"Yes. I… think I found something. I library. I found some information there."

"Is it about the Reach?" Dick leaned forwards interestedly.

"No. It's still important." Barbara murmured, glancing around at her chattering, oblivious teammates. All except Megan. She's still quiet. "I… I think it has something to do with Kaldur."

He nodded and didn't say anything after that.

"You… think that the second Robin and Tula… are alive?" Impulse had summed up.

Dead silence. They were all crowded into the living space next to the kitchen. Moments ago, everyone had been wrestling and scrambling over the best seats, with shouts of "you _bit_ me! I can't believe you actually _bit _me!" and "Mal, scoot over. Make some room!"

Now, after having finally gotten them to settle down and listen, Barbara might as well have fired a gun.

"That's not what I said." Barbara responded to Impulse calmly.

"That's what it sounded like you're saying." Nightwing snapped, and Barbara was taken aback by how aggressive, how accusatory he sounded. Especially after last night… and this morning.

"All I said," Barbara addressed the startled team members as neutrally as she could, "Was that today on the mission I came across a library. Filled with files on every member of the team. All of us."

"Why didn't you find the files on the Reach's future plans?" Conner demanded.

"I didn't have time to look. One of them just came off these sort of… shelves, and showed itself to me. Like someone meant for me to read it. I found biographies on all of us—even people like Artemis and Kaldur and Wally, who aren't… with the team anymore."

"And you're saying you found Robin's and Tula's?" Mal verified. "BG, I want to believe they're alive as much as you do, but this doesn't really prove anything."

"Yeah, those files were probably really old." Karen added gently.

Tim thought for a moment, then spoke up for the first time throughout the whole meeting. (He had Cassie's head in his lap and was otherwise distracted looking uncharacteristically smug.) "But, the records couldn't have been old." He said after giving it a moment's thought. "If they had updated files on Artemis, Kaldur, and Wally, why would the ones about Robin II and Tula be old? It doesn't make sense."

"Stop." Nightwing said sternly, the whites of his eyes narrowed at Barbara. "Batgirl, you should have come to me with this information first."

"Why?" Barbara asked. "I'm not saying that this means anything, but don't you think we should be looking into it at least?"

"No. Barbara, this has to be some sort of mistake. Or worse, it's a trap." Conner interrupted. "Megan and I came across something like that two years ago on a mission with Kid Flash. We thought that we'd found evidence that would incriminate two very famous scientists, and prove that they were working with Cadmus and the Light. Well, they turned out to be innocent. The Injustice League planned the whole thing out, and the League got into a lot of legal trouble for our… evidence searching methods."

"I told you not to break in." Megan muttered haughtily.

"How was I supposed to know anything about search warrants?" Conner shot back grumpily.

"Okay, off topic." Barbara said, clapping her hands together.

"Not really. This discussion is over, Batgirl." Nightwing said stiffly, standing up.

"Why, because you say it is? We don't know what this means, sure, but we could at least try to figure out _why_ the Reach wanted us to find this file, even if—"

"Barbara, let it go. Just drop it." Nightwing snapped, his voice hard and bitter, a tone he rarely used with _criminals,_ let alone _Barbara_. "The second Robin is dead, Tula is dead, Artemis is dead, why can't you just accept that?"

For a moment, everyone was silent. Then Barbara drew in a breath and said quietly, "I… don't remember questioning…. Artemis's death."

He didn't answer right away. Dick ran a hand through his hair and gave a gruff sigh, turning around and gesturing for the rest of the team to leave. "Everyone, you're dismissed for the day. Go home, stay, I don't care. Consider the day over. You've all got some downtime."

Everyone slowly stood up, muttering and glancing between the two of them in confusion, filing slowly out of the room or moving to the opposite couch to turn on the television.

Barbara's eyes narrowed as she watched Dick leave. Normally, she would have dismissed his attitude as grief and shock. She would have tried to talk to him, at least have gone home with him and fussed and cared for the poor man, insisting he take the next day off. But she had known Nightwing longer than anyone else on the team. The way he walked, with his tensed shoulders and locked jaw and twitching fingers. He wasn't sad or angry or upset. He had hardly grieved throughout the entire lapse of time since Artemis's was stressed. He was up to something.

Barbara watched him leave with her nails digging into her palms, her fists clenched tight.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Don't worry, I'm not going to pull a season 2 YJ on you and end up scrambling to tie up all these loose ends, I actually know where the story is going and there will be massive bombshells somewhere in the later chapters! Thank you all you lovely people for reviewing, favoriting and following! I'll post soon!**


	5. Necessary

**Rating—T, as always**

**Disclaimer— I think you've got the idea, I'll stop writing these disclaimers after this.**

**A/N—Hello friends, and thank you for the many lovely reviews! In this chapter, Barbara learns of Nightwing's big secret shortly after being captured by the Reach. Jason Todd and Tula's story aren't really mentioned in this chapter—this is more of an Artemis/Kaldur/the Reach story, with the betrayal and death and all. Enjoy!**

* * *

She's not a morning person.

Not an original thought, she realizes, but still. If she could sleep till noon, she would. But of course, she had the brilliant idea yesterday that if she put her alarm clock outside in the hallway, she would be forced to get up and turn it off instead of lazily batting at the snooze button like she normally does.

She stretches painfully, remembering the night before. Finally, after going through the betrayal of Blue Beetle and the Reach Capture and being dragged out of an anti-gravity cell on the War World, she went back to the team's makeshift-headquarters with the other captives.

Barbara had expected Nightwing to jump her the second they were alone. Everyone else had either gone home or set up for the night. They had been sectioned off into the computer room, completely alone except for Bart, who had fallen asleep slumped against one of the computer screens, his mouth hanging open and his snoring breaking the awkward silence effectively. Dick had barely looked at her, only speaking to ask her questions about the capture. Even then, they had been questions related to the invasion. He had uncharacteristically refrained from pestering her with questions about if she was okay, if she was hurt, any bruises—nothing.

It's starting to worry her.

Barbara pours herself a bowl of cereal, the kind she forces herself to buy because it's so healthy she can almost taste the fiber and protein as she's choking it down. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she glances around her simple, tidy apartment and her eyes fall on the small cluttered corner of the living room. It was littered with toys and stuffed animals from the last time she had babysat the twin three-year-olds across the hall.

Barbara set down her unsatisfying bowl of healthy cereal and walked over towards it to start picking up blue elephants and plastic trains, dumping them into a laundry basket to take back over later. It was then that she saw the picture.

It had been taken about two summers ago, on the beach of Happy Harbor with Mount Justice in the background. She was standing in the middle with her hair loose and frazzled around her shoulders, her cheeks tinged pink with sunburn. Dick's arm was around her shoulders, his eyes shining behind his dark glasses. His head was just barely touching hers.

And there was Artemis. She was clad in a purple cover-up and a visor, grinning goofily over the top of her sunglasses and blowing a kiss at Wally, who was at the time, holding the camera.

_Wally_. She hadn't even thought about him. She hadn't even considered what he must be going through.

With that thought, Barbara heads back into the kitchen, dumping the rest of her now-soggy cereal down the drain and pulling her cell-phone out of its charger. She dialed Wally's number.

He picked up on the third ring.

"Y-ello?" He sounded like he had his mouth full of something.

"Hi Wally, it's Barbara." She said.

"Oh—" Wally sounded startled, and there was a shuffling sound and murmured whispers, followed by the sound of Wally crushing the phone against a pillow to muffle the voices. "Uh, Barb, now isn't really the best time for me, maybe you could call back later—"

"Really?" Barbara asked, suddenly suspicious. The emotional, sweet, heartfelt condolence speech she had prepared died on her lips as she heard the words, _"Hang up on her."_ from somewhere on the other line. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well…" Wally trailed off to murmur something like, "What…. Artemis…. Tracking…" before speaking into the phone again. "Yeah, I'm just… here with my dog."

"It must be hard with… with Artemis gone, Wally. I just wanted to call and say how sorry I am."

"Yeah." Wally interrupted, as if he was trying to cut the call short.

Was she just being oversensitive and paranoid? Maybe it had something to do with her capture yesterday. Or lack of sleep. She continued, this time more sympathetically.

"She was important to all of us, Wally. You can talk to us—please, whatever you do, don't shut us out. She wouldn't have wanted that for you. And I know how much it's hurting the rest of the team, so I can't even imagine what this must be like for you—God, I'm so, so sorry." She finished with a deep breath, and for a moment, there was dead silence on the other line.

"Yeah. Thanks, Barbara." Wally says, his voice flat and void.

"Wally… is everything okay?"

"I've gotta go. Thanks for checking up on me, Barbara." Wally says.

Barbara makes a noise in the back of her throat, not even getting out a cohesive syllable before there's a click and he's hung up on her.

"Fine." She muttered to herself bitterly. She hated to do this—but he had forced her hand. She hit the corner button of her cheap, five-year old track phone and the tracking surveilence system flickered onto the screen.

She had originally installed it incase any of the team was every kidnapped. But it would work for tracking down the suspicious speedster too. Anything worked.

The red button flashed across the digital map on the screen and Barbara frowned. "What?" She tapped the button and zoomed in closer, wondering if she had read the name right. "What are you doing in Bludhaven, Wally?"

* * *

"And none of you find that weird?" Barbara asked, stirring her coffee and leaning back against the makeshift table

"What I find weird, girl, is that you have a device on your twenty-dollar phone that can track your boyfriend's location." Karen said with a laugh, glancing over at Mal, who was talking to Conner. "Damn. I need to learn how to do that."

Barbara rolled her eyes. "_Focus_, people. Have none of you realized that Nightwing's been acting… a little weird lately? And he's not my boyfriend." She added, glaring at Karen.

"Maybe he's got another girlfriend." Tim nudged her in the ribs with his elbow, waggling his eyebrows and trying to be funny.

"Robin honey, she _knows_ he's got other girlfriends." Karen rolled her eyes as well. "And for some unknown reason, it doesn't bother her." She glanced at the red head for confirmation, and Barbara nodded in agreement.

"Not the point." Barbara said impatiently. She slid back so she was sitting on top of the table next to Cassie. "Guys, I'm telling you, something's up."

"What's up?" Jaime appeared out of nowhere on Cassie's right, eyebrows raised and his arms full of chips and pop-tart boxes.

"Nothing." Robin shook his head. "BG's being paranoid, s'all."

"Whhhaaat? A bat? Paranoid? You're kidding." Impulse snickered. "Although, history books were never really clear about the details of—"

"Bart!" Megan cut him off sharply.

Impulse jumped, then blushed apologetically. "Yeah, right, sorry. Not supposed to talk about the future, not supposed to risk tearing the fabric of time, etcetera, etcetera. Got it."

"_Guys_." Barbara insisted vehemently. "We know Nightwing keeps secrets. We know he's been acting strange lately. So why—"

"What's all this about?" Nightwing suddenly appeared at Jaime's elbow, making the boy jump and spill cheez-its everywhere. He took a few healthy steps back from the dark, fuming vigilante and tried to hide behind Bart.

Barbara looked up, and for a moment, she felt a ripple of fear at the suspicion and barely concealed anger in his eyes. "We, uh…" She began intelligently, before Bart interrupted.

"Batgirl thinks you're hiding something from us. I told her she was crazy."

Nearly everyone in the group face-palmed. Barbara narrowed her eyes and he flinched back, knowing that threatening glare all too well. Barbara was not crazy and took offense being referred to as such.

Nightwing's eyes narrowed for a moment, then he sighed, looking at Barbara with an expression that was almost… proud.

"She's not crazy."

Everyone turned in surprise to see Conner leaning in the doorway, his eyes dark and the permanent scowl he always wore this time etched even deeper in his face. "Nightwing's been lying to us for months."

The expression on Dick's face wasn't angry this time—just scrutinizing. He watched as the rest of the team crawled off their cots and came up the stairs, muttering to each other and coming to stand in a semi-circle around their leader.

"What? What's going on?" Garfield's head popped up between Bart and Jaime's shoulders. "I want to know what's going on."

"Join the club." Barbara said boldly, crossing her arms across her chest. She gave Dick, one of her closest and most trusted friends a bat-glare she usually reserved for super villains and those idiot college boys who lived in her apartment complex, the ones who seemed to have issues understanding the word, 'no.'

Dick had seen this glare plenty of times. He's never had it directed at him before. Barbara watched him wilt a little—saw his shoulders slump and his eyes look down dejectedly behind the white patches that obscure her view of those baby blues. Which was maybe for the best, because he really knows how to work those things when he's trying to get sympathy.

"What are you talking about, Conner?" Karen asked curiously.

Conner took a deep breath and exchanged a glance with Mal. Then he moved forwards, into the middle of the circle and looked straight at Dick before beginning to explain. He was speaking to the team, but he never took his eyes off of Nightwing as the vigilante seemed to shrink back into himself, becoming more and more distant.

Conner explains everything—Kaldur's betrayal, Artemis's feigned death, the position of Tigris and Aqua Lad with the Reach and the Light. He explains how he learned of this, how casually Dick had explained it all to him. He finished with a signature glare, and a question for Nightwing, addressing the sulking dark figure for the first time during his entire speech. "Nightwing, did it ever _once_ occur to you that maybe, just maybe, you might want to tell the _telepath_ on the team about this?"

Megan flinched, curling into Garfield's arms as if he was a shield. Barbara felt a sudden rush of sympathy for her—at first, she hadn't understood the Martian's fragility since their mission to rescue team members from the Reach.

Everyone stared at Richard, either confusedly or accusatory, awaiting some sign that he was either going to deny or confirm Conner's claims.

"It was necessary." Dick says finally.

After that, all hell breaks loose. Everyone is either shouting at Nightwing or laughing and crying and falling into each other's arms, saying, "She's alive. She's alive." Barbara is one of the few who just stands there, stunned, staring at the chaos and trying to connect the dots.

When it hits her, it hits her hard. God, she's so stupid. She's such an idiot. How could she not see through this? How could he do this to them? Why?

Another thought sends a painful jolt through her heart, and she actually flinches at the sheer pain of it. He was right when he said it had been necessary. It had been a good plan. But how had he come up with it? How could anyone even think to do something like that? The idea itself was clever. Cunning. Necessary. But it had also been dark and twisted and wrong. How long had it taken him to figure it all out? When had he decided that he was going to keep it from them?

And then she remembers that night—the night he had come to her, seeking _comfort._ How she had consoled and soothed and petted him, given him attention and sympathy. She had shared his bed, slept curled against him, stroking his hair and wondering how she could ease his pain. She remembers how awful she felt for him. He had made her feel like that, played her, gotten her to stay the night—all for her attention.

Barbara looked up, climbing off the table and staring towards him. She pushed aside a furious La'gaan and turns to face the rest of the team. "Okay. Everybody out! If you're sleeping here, get to bed. If you're not, go home. We can deal with all of this tomorrow, but we have missions to deal with in the morning and you need to get some sleep."

Her orders are met with cries of, "Who put you in charge?" and, "Like hell we will," and "what about you, Barbara?"

"I'll _deal _with Nightwing." Barbara said venomously, her tone of voice promising Dick that there would be hell to pay for everything he had done.

Getting everyone to leave was difficult, but it was easier once Barbara had assured Garfield that she wasn't going to kill Dick. "Seriously maim, possibly." She ground out, not a hint of humor in her eyes as she shoved him into Megan's arms and herding them down the stairs. "I promise not to kill him."

Getting the older kids to relent was a bit more difficult. But the glint in Barbara's eyes must have been pretty frightening, because eventually even Mal retreated to his bed.

"Barbara…" Nightwing began quietly. She didn't trust herself to speak. Gripping his strong wrist fiercely in her small hand, she tugged and he followed and she dragged him outside, out through the garage-like door and onto the dimly lit street behind the building. Bludhaven had always seemed like a cold, uninviting city to Barbara, but now, with the flickering brown light from the streetlamps so far away, she was surrounded by complete and utter darkness. She closed the door behind them and hesitated only a moment before turning to face him.

"Barbara…" Dick said softly. "Ah, look. I'm sorry I had to lie to you. But it was necessary. We needed someone on the inside to get intel on the Reach—"

Whatever Richard was going to say was cut off in a sudden cry of surprise and pain, muffled by the _thwack_ of Barbara's fist slamming into his face. He shouted in pain and cursed in Mandarin, bowing over with his hands clasped over the bruise blossoming over his left eye.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Barbara burst out. She had actually been aiming for his nose, but had instead hit the hard, metal-woven fabric of his mask. The blood dripping from her fingers isn't his, but at least she's given him a decent bruise. "What kind of person could even _consider_ that, let alone have the kind of apathy to invent a plan like it?"

"Batgirl, calm down." He puts his arms up in an X, as if in defense. "I understand you're angry, but this was necessary—"

"Richard John Grayson," Barbara ground out, "I am trying _very _hard not to hit you again. You're not helping your case."

"Barbara, stop! I know what I did hurt some of you, but we are _heroes._ That is what we do. We make sacrifices. Why the hell are you angry? You hardly _knew_ Artemis!"

"This isn't about Artemis, this is about you, Richard!" Barbara yelled back. "This is about how it's _always _been about the mission. I've never known you were willing to go this far—"

"That's what we do, Barbara! We save people. At all costs, we fight crime to give the few innocents in the world a chance. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's dangerous. Why do you think I tried to keep you out of it?" He towered over her, and even in the barely-there lighting, she could see how angry he was. "I have been fighting this battle for ten years. And never, not ever, has there been one fight where I've walked away unhurt. We all have scars, Barbara. Not just on our bodies. That's what being a hero _means._ It means that I'm willing to die to save someone in need. It means I'm willing to sacrifice everything, if it means that I can get a captured girl back to her family. If it means that I can save that starving kid on the streets of Gotham. Or even stop an alien invasion. Because that's just who I am, Barbara."

There were a few moments of silence as his words sunk in for both of them. Then Barbara leaned in, her eyes glittering with anger and her tone so low and quiet and dark that it was barely audible. "I think that's who you used to be."

When he jerks back confusedly, she continues. "That hero, you're talking about? The one who would risk everything for the good of humanity? I knew him. He was my friend. That kid who never stopped laughing. The one who didn't want to be Batman." Barbara felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she angrily fought against them. She didn't care if it was dark, and he couldn't see. She didn't want to cry in front of him. "But it's not about helping people anymore, Richard. It's about ambition. It's about that… that drive you have, that _obsession_, the one you and Bruce share—and I thought, when you were younger, that maybe he hadn't gotten to you. But now… there's no room for anything else in your life, Richard. Not even me."

"You've never really understood." He growls, turning his head to the side so he can rip off his mask. Even with the shadow of a the bruise under his eye, his irises gleam brilliant blue. Not in the way she knows and loves—now, they're chips of ice, like he's looking at a murderer. He's never given her that look. Never.

"You never went through what I did." He grinds out. "Maybe if you had— had suffered through that—losing them… Barbara, you have no idea what it's like—"

"What? To lose your family?" Barbara's eyes narrowed. "I have a better idea than you'd think."

Dick glowered, and for a moment Barbara hoped that he didn't think that statement over too much. She hoped he would just regard it as having lost her mother. Thankfully, he replied with the words, "You still have a father. It's different."

"So this is about your parents?" Barbara snapped, her everlasting patience finally wearing through. She'd wanted to say it for years, but no matter how angry she was with him, she never could manage to phrase it in a way that wouldn't hurt him. "So you finally admit it? Richard, you can pass as many of Bruce's tests as you want. You could save every young girl being chased down a dark alley in Bludhaven. You could stop every burglary, capture every super-villain, but it wouldn't change anything." She leaned closer, so her lips were right next to his ear, her chin on his shoulder in a manner that almost suggested she was about to say something sweet.

But her voice was filled with menace when she finally whispered, "It wouldn't matter, Richard. You could save every damn victim in this city, this country, this world—but it won't. Bring. Them. Back." She ripped her arm off his shoulders and shoved past him, not sure where she was going, not really caring. She had felt his arm tense and heard his breathing stutter at the words, and it was enough. She had hurt him, and it was enough.

"Where are you going?" He called. "Barbara, you can't go off on your own out here. Bludhaven is— Barbara, come back!"

She melted into the shadows so easily, just like he had taught her. And then she disappeared. She was in no mood to be told what to do, especially by _him._

She just needs to get away.

* * *

**A/N: I know that in the comics, it was mainly Bruce who struggled with his parents death whereas Nightwing was always much more lighthearted. So in this story, I just let out all my anger at how stoic and emotionless CN made him in season 2. This is my supposed excuse for why Nightwing is turning into Batman. Don't worry, the story is not yet over! (Sorry if the ending's crummy, I wrote this really late at night. You get the gist.)**


	6. Alaska

She's not sure how she gets home. One minute, she's running down an ally in Bludhaven, trying to make it to the subway, the next, her perky, overenthusiastic neighbor, Mitzi, is trying to convince her to babysit her twins yet again.

Barbara disregards everyone she meets with a mere, "Can't talk right now," or "Really tired, going to bed," and makes it back to her apartment with a stifled sob, managing to close the door before she starts to cry.

Her pride gets in the way of her really getting to let anything out. She refuses to shed a tear, choking down every sob of confusion and anger and grief. She was not going to wallow in dramatic self-pity like every romance novel heroine in existence. She was a hero. A fighter. She didn't break down and cry over a guy not being honest with her…

_Jeez, my life is just turning into one of those Twilight movies, without the crappy soundtrack…_ She thought to herself, staring up at the ceiling and trying to distract herself from crying. The flaking, yellowing paint, surprisingly, wasn't very interesting.

She goes into the kitchen and finds a cold cup of coffee sitting on the tiled counter. She can't remember mixing a cup this morning, but she gives the thought little regard as she gulps it down, hoping the caffeine will do something to soothe her nerves or whatever it is that coffee's supposedly good for.

She's not sure who she hates more in that moment—Richard, or herself. She's never spoken to him like that before. They've bickered. They've argued. They've fought. But never, not once, has Barbara ever leaned against him like that, whispering in that deceivingly sweet voice and running her palm up and down over his heart, wanting to hurt him. Using every weakness and vulnerability that he had trusted her with against him, out of bitter anger and petty spite. She had delivered a blow with the softest touch, the soundest whisper.

Her mother had always used to preach that it was the people you loved that could hurt you the most. Evidently, this had been true, with Barbara's mother leaving the next year and her insane son, James Junior, disappearing shortly afterwards with an ominous warning.

But Barbara had never once considered that this rule applied to Richard. _Her_ Richard, strong and silent and brave, literally cackling in the face of death. She had never thought that the man who could battle super villains without batting an eye could be hurt by someone like her, with a few simple words whispered in his ear by someone he loved.

He never would have treated her like this. If it had been her who came up with this plan, if it had been her who had lied to the team, he might have pulled her aside and spoken to her about it. He would have yelled, maybe, but would have cooled down quietly. She wouldn't even have to apologize, she knew. He would have calmed down after a while and run his hands through his unruly hair, tugging in frustration like he always did when he was trying hard to regain his temper. Then Richard would have pulled her into his arms and he would have forgiven her. Knowing him, he'd probably throw in an apology for yelling.

She almost smiled at the thought. Sometimes endearing, sometimes annoying, Dick's well-known habit of removing the prefixes from words was apparently a package deal with the I-am-to-blame-for-everything-that-goes-wrong thing he had going on. She had never understood how one man could be so selfless. Until now. But still.

God, she had _hurt_ him.

It wasn't that he had lied to her. She didn't care about that. She understood how difficult his job as team leader was. She knew how hard it was for him sometimes. The amount of stress and pressure put on him would make most nineteen year old guys crack. It was the entire plan itself that was screwed up.

Her phone rings. Again. This time, she picks it up, and hits a button, half in doubt, half in guilt. "Hello?" She rasps.

"Barbara? Is that you?" Richard's voice is harsh and angry, the way it never is when he's talking to her. "Where the hell are you? Are you safe? The whole team's been going nuts, you scared them out of their minds!"

"I'm fine." Barbara says in a small voice.

"Barbara, Bludhaven is even more dangerous than Gotham. You can't just run off like that! Even a girl like you should not be running around at night, alone—"

"Richard. Richard I have to go." Barbara suddenly says, her voice full of strain and urgency, her eyes snapping wide.

"No, Barbara, do not hang up. That is an order—"

"I have to go, I'll call you back." Barbara gasps, her voice rising shrilly as she clumsily tries to put the landline back on the receiver. It takes her three times, and by the time Dick's pleas and protests have ceased, he's still there.

Not Richard. The cat.

She's not startled by the fact that she has just come home from a very trying day at work, arriving at home only to be met by a long-haired Persian making himself at home in her desk chair. Believe it or not, that was actually not the weirdest thing ever to have happened to her.

No, it was the familiarity of the situation.

Her hand still clamped over the phone, Barbara closed her eyes slowly and opened them again. The cat was still there, regarding her disinterestedly through half-lidded eyes. Barbara flashed back for a moment, remembering her brother's childhood bedroom, the one that still lay untouched in her father's apartment since he left.

She remembers a cat, perched on the end of her brother's surprisingly tidy computer desk, dresser, or the neatly made bed. A cat that looked just like this one. A cream-colored Persian, with the same bored, lazily drooping blue eyes, the same chocolate-tipped ears and tail. It even had a patch of shorter fur from where it had been sheared off, that one time he had been bitten by a snake in the back yard. Every detail was identical.

He had been James's cat. Thoroughly James's cat, who he had dubbed 'Alaska,' for reasons unknown. In theory, the demon-feline had belonged to the family. But while the overgrown rat with a blow-dry had lounged on James's lap and let the boy pick him up and pull his tail from the age of three, he snapped and clawed at Barbara every time she so much as looked at him.

The only problem was, the cat was dead. It had been. For nearly three years.

At the age of twelve, for no comprehensible reason, James had strangled it.

Alaska—no, _the cat_, blinked at her stupidly, then slinked out of her desk chair and slowly made his way towards the open window, which led out onto the fire escape.

"James….?" Barbara breathed out the name, looking up out the window as if she expected her brother to be hanging upside-down just outside.

She couldn't see a thing past the quiet, chipped gray paint that bordered the entrance to the fire escape. That and the cat.

They day James had first been arrested, her father had been standing outside of his office, dabbing furiously at his forehead with a dry paper towel like some people did in movies. He was arguing with the lieutenant, stuttering and shaking his head.

He didn't believe them. It couldn't have been _his_ boy, _his _son who had done this. James Junior wouldn't have. He couldn't have.

Barbara knows he had.

She clutches her purse tightly to her side and jerks her head, indicating for the guard to step aside and let her speak with her brother. He gives her a wary glance, but Barbara must have had either a very intimidating or a very pleading look about her, because he eventually steps aside and pulls open the door for her with the words, "Be careful, kid. He's dangerous."

_I know._ She answers silently._ I've known all along._

He's fiddling with one of those cube-shaped puzzles of different colors, the ones she can never remember the names of. The interrogator is sitting in one of the chairs, glaring at her obstinate client with her hands folded and her teeth clenched. She barely even notices when Barbara pulls back a chair with a scrape and flings herself down next to them.

"So… what you're saying is that you killed Albert Strogonoff out of… curiosity?"

James didn't answer right away. He was still diligently studying the multi-colored block that rested in his right hand, his head cocked and eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He was still wearing his cheap, blue plastic reading glasses and his Gotham Vo-tech t-shirt. He cleared his throat, pushing the glasses higher up on the bony bridge of his nose.

"Actually, Doreen, I was saying that my assassination of Mr. Albert Strogonoff was not provoked, and I assure you he was not being targeted for any specific purposes." James Junior said, his eyes flickering up towards 'Doreen's' meaningfully.

And yes, the kid was thirteen years old.

"Please don't call me Doreen." The woman said stiffly. "James, we haven't—"

"Have you ever killed anyone?" The scrawny, orange-haired young boy said suddenly, looking up at the woman with general interest, as if this was a casual pleasantry like, 'how are you?' or 'it's nice to meet you.'

The woman jerked back, clearly unused to being asked questions like this.

Barbara, however, was. She had long-since stopped reacting to James's sudden, startling, and admittedly sometimes thought-provoking questions. "Of course she hasn't, James." She said scathingly.

"Then she can't really understand." James said simply. He didn't look at Barbara when he said it, and it was unclear if he was addressing her or Doreen or both of them.

"Why did you kill him, James?" Doreen said quietly. "He was an old man, harmless and senile. We have confirmed that the two of you never even met each other. So why, _why_ did you push him down that flight of stairs?"

James shook his head, staring at the staid, beige wall and laughing quietly. "I'm not going to answer the way you think I am." He said finally. "You're an expert, I'm sure, Doreen. But you think I'm like the Riddler. Or Penguin, Poison Ivy, Doctor Freeze, any other villain you bring in here for interrogation. I know what you expect me to say."

"And what is that, James?" Doreen prompted, pulling a paper out of her file and starting to take notes.

James smirked at the metal tabletop. "You think I did it for the same reasons they did, or one of them, anyways. For the thrill. The control. Revenge. Money. Power. Whatever the reason, you think that I killed that man because there was something in it for me." He leaned over the desk, and both women instinctively draw back. He grins, amused.

"If you've never killed, you can never really understand. I'll try to explain it to you, Doreen, but you won't get it." He sighed, shaking his head as if in sympathy. As if both of them were really missing out on something. "When a person realizes that they're going to die, they _change._ You see the civilians, the ones that are in constant, dire need of their heroes, never really deserved their help to begin with. You realize that the common pleasantries and the everyday good deeds do not a person make. People only help each other because it makes them feel better about themselves. Because it gives them the illusion that they are the good-guys, that everything else is justified by those simple principles." When he had finished explaining, James Junior kicked back his chair on two legs, the way any other normal thirteen year old boy would, and started cleaning his box-shaped glasses on the hem of his t-shirt.

"So… that's what this is?" Barbara's voice is a hoarse whisper. "James, is this just… a test of _human nature?"_

For the first time, James Junior looked at his sister with glazed-over blue eyes, shaded with ratty, long red bangs. "Of course, Barbie." He said casually. And then he leaned back. "It's like I said. You never really know a person until you cut their throat open. It's then that you can look at them and finally connect. It's then that you can look into their eyes, and see their _soul._"

* * *

Barbara holds her breath as the cat that looks like Alaska springs up onto her nightstand with a silent swish of his long tail. A tail that has the small brown spot near the tip. Just like James's cat… Barbara pushes the thought aside and springs to her feet, blood buzzing back into her limbs.

A gust of wind through the open window blows her hair inconveniently across her face, and she's still spitting tangled red curls out of her mouth as the cat springs up onto the nightstand. Her school papers and several old picture frames clatter to the ground, and she hears the crunch of breaking glass as the cat leaps out onto the fire escape.

She starts after it, but after a flash of lazy-blue eyes and a flick of his tail, Alaska—No, _no_, the _cat_ is gone. He's not on the fire escape. Not on the ground, two stories down. She has no idea where.

Barbara breathes in deeply and says over and over in her brain, _"I am not crazy," _like it's going to make her feel any better.

She feels terrible about it, because he is—_was_— her brother, but she's also finding comfort in repeating the words, _"James is dead, James is dead,"_ over and over. She feels terrible for hoping that the statement is true.

_"Get it together, Gordon._" Her mental drill sergeant brings her back down to earth, and she distractedly gets down on her knees and starts to recollect everything the cat knocked over. The paper is easily retrieved, her books are okay, her globe-shaped paperweight is chipped, but fine.

Up until she finds the picture, she's completely convinced of her mental stability. Well, not completely convinced—she did just see the family cat, which was strangled three years ago, parade through her bedroom and jump out into nowhere. Nothing weird with that. That was probably normal.

And then she found it. A photograph of her and Richard. It's at one of the galas, taken very recently, an extra Dick had been carrying around and Barbara had stuffed in a cheap wooden frame with the intent of making her apartment a little more 'homey.'

It's a fuzzy image of him in his suit and her in Karen's prom dress at that Christmastide charity gala, standing on the steps of Wayne manor. He looks stunning, as always, grinning casually into the camera lens with one hand on Barbara's lower back. Barbara herself is looking slightly less miserable than she usually was a galas, looking not at the camera, but at Richard. His head thrown back in an easy laugh, blue eyes glittering confidently.

The frame was fine. The picture itself was fine. But in the glass covering the photo, there were two thin, spider-webbing cracks. They missed the image of Barbara, not a sliver of broken glass touching her from the hem of the tight, borrowed dress to the red hair piled high on her head.

The frame clatters to the ground and Barbara cries for the first time in years. And it's not for herself. It's out of fear, out of anger, out of _love _for _him_.

The two cracks intersect in an X. Right over Dick's heart.

* * *

**A/N—Okay, can you tell that I wrote this after watching an episode of Downton Abbey? I was feeling pretty dramatic. (My roommate loves that show.) Sorry for the lack of dialogue and the inexcusable lack of Richard Grayson in this chapter. It was kind of a filler episode, if you know what I mean. I appreciate all the reviews, follows, and faves. (I promise you, I do have a plot, I'm working on it.) This story will probably have two more chapters, and then I will have another story following as a sequel. It will be called Reticent. Thanks for reading!**


	7. Training

**Hey, I'm back! Here's a little Labor Day present from me to you. Enjoy!**

* * *

"No, Raquel." Barbara forced out a dry, flat-sounding laugh as she let her friends tow her towards the store window. "I have too many shoes already."

Zatanna's eyes widened in what Barbara could only assume was offense, and she tutted in disdain. "_Too many shoes_." She repeated, sounding scandalized. "No such thing."

"Yeah, _come on_, Red. You need to quit moping. Get out of that apartment, do some shopping—it's healthy."

"Not for my credit card." Barbara replied dryly, patting the visa in her right pocket with sympathy. "I think I sprained the poor thing."

Barbara, Zatanna, and Raquel had been out shopping since nearly eight in the morning. When Nightwing had finally answered Barbara's desperate, panicked attempts to reach him, he had told her bluntly that the team had been given orders to stay home and enjoy some downtime for the next day, due to everyone's emotionally compromising distress over the events of Artemis's death.

Whilst everyone else on the team had been persistently trying to get ahold of Wally and Artemis, Barbara had called Dick at least seven times before he picked up. He didn't even have time to start telling her off for running away and hanging up on him in the middle of a conversation before Barbara started grilling _him_. Was he okay, where was he, was anything going wrong, etc. etc.

Dick had flatly responded that he was fine. Why wouldn't he be? And what the hell was she playing at, hanging up like that? He thought she was being attacked. Barbara, at that exact moment, had run her finger over a splinter of shattered glass from the broken picture frame still clamped in her left hand. Her thumb still hurt.

Somehow, she got to sleep. It was a restless, half-awake state of being where she startled every time she started to drift off, a rush of adrenaline sweeping through her body and heightening her senses once again. And when she did sleep, it wasn't peaceful.

Everything in her dreams was blue. The blue of the Nightwing symbol. Of her dress in the photo. The blue of the Persian cat's eyes as he slinked out of the window. Of Richard's eyes. Of James.

Everything was blue.

She had woken up early to the sound of two persistent fists rapping sharply on her apartment door; she had stumbled to answer the call to find both Raquel and Zatanna waiting expectantly. They were both dressed up with their Armani clutches held in their hands like weapons, telling her flatly that she was coming shopping with them and refusing to take no for an answer.

They had both shoved her into a pair of jean-shorts and a t-shirt that they had considered "passable," despite Barbara's protests that she was too tired and didn't feel well and she just wanted to spend _one_ day at home.

But Raquel and Zatanna were having none of it.

"You definitely need some heels." Zatanna said, critically eyeing one of the price-tags of a pair of strappy high-heeled sandals that looked more like torture contraptions.

Barbara huffed in amusement, sorting through different sizes of tennis-shoes. "To wear with what, jean-shorts?" She countered.

Raquel shook her head and reached down to drag a pair of Sketchers out of Barbara's hands. "Honey, lots of people care about you. And we are trying to help you. But first, you need to let the ugly librarian clothes go."

Zatanna laughed in agreement at Barbara's offended eye-roll. "She's right you know." She agreed. "Please, Barb, at least ditch the flowery peasant skirts."

Raquel scrunched up her nose at the thought. "Yeah, the skirts have gotta go. Zee, what else is on the list?"

"Let's see." The dark-haired magician pulled her address-book out of her (surprisingly) neatly organized bag, pulling on the red plastic tab so the book flipped open to her note section.

For as long as Barbara had known her, Zatanna had carried the book. Every memory the red-head had of Richard's gorgeous ex-girlfriend included those glossy purple fingernails grazing along the candy-colored plastic tabs, scribbling down notes and names of people and places she liked. And if you were lucky enough to have your name in that book, it meant you were going to be taken care of. Growing up without her father had made Zatanna very protective of the family she did have.

But then, she was a rebel too. She was wild, restless, and free. Zatanna's world moved faster than anyone but Raquel could comprehend—it had always seemed to Barbara the main reason for the two girls' inseparable friendship. Of course, it wasn't always a good thing—sometimes Zatanna ignored orders back when Kaldur was team leader. Sometimes she drank too much. She was a little racy, a little unpredictable, and didn't give a damn what anyone thought about her.

Maybe that's what Dick had liked so much about her. Maybe it was the freedom that came with being around her, the sense of carelessness—like you could do whatever you wanted. Maybe he liked how she lifted all that stress and responsibility off of his shoulder and threw it out of the window.

"Let's see." Zatanna tapped her paper with her pen and drew her lower lip between her teeth. "We've covered shoes, jacket, jeans, and a new skirt. You think she needs some tops?" She turned to consult Raquel.

Raquel looked up from a box of red pumps and nodded vigorously. "Oh yeah, definitely. And she could use some of these, too."

"Guys…" Barbara rolled her eyes as her friends hauled her to her feet and proceeded to make her look at dozens of pairs of shoes, fussing over the color, the style, the price. Meanwhile, Barbara was insisting that she was fine just shopping at Goodwill, considering her current income. Upon hearing this, Zatanna had nearly suffered a stroke.

They had almost made it to the parking lot when Barbara's communicator started ringing. It was a small, square clip that fastened onto her utility belt that ironically also was the perfect size to clip onto the inside of her jean pocket. She stopped on the sidewalk and drew it out covertly, holding it up to her ear and murmuring a word of acknowledgement into the side.

"Hello?"

_"Team, come in."_ Nightwing's voice addressed the whole group. _"There's been an emergency security breach. The Reach is onto Artemis's tail. I need full backup, everyone in Bludhaven as soon as possible. Nightwing out."_

Raquel and Zatanna, who at this point had only just looked back to see Barbara stalk-still in the middle of the sidewalk, stopped and looked at her in confusion.

"Hurry up, girl, we've still gotta hit up the big department stores!" Raquel started back towards her friend.

"Guys," Barbara said, jamming the communicator back into her jean's pocket and picking up her dropped shopping bags, "We've got to go. Or at least I do."

"Why?" It was almost funny how whiningly deprived Zatanna sounded, her shoulders slumping and her red lips twisting into an almost-pout. Her tone was suddenly threatening—"I swear to god, if it is another homework call from one of those classic college slackers who are so lazy they have to call up the nerd every five minutes for help—"

"Zatanna." Raquel soothed her friend amusedly at the same time that Barbara mumbled something about not being a nerd.

"So what _is_ up?" Raquel demanded, shouldering an impressive load of heavy shopping bags. "Fighting with the boss again?"

For some reason, this statement put Barbara on edge all over again. She answered calmly though, if through gritted teeth with tightly clenched fists. "No." Raquel and Zatanna ceased fidgeting for a moment to look up at her in sudden fear and seriousness as the next words left her mouth.

"The Reach is onto Artemis."

* * *

There was a thwack like wood snapping on wood and the sound of Conner hitting the mat hard enough to shake the floor.

"_Damn_, if I don't love this new job!" Mal cackled, cracking his knuckles and laughing victoriously before leaning down to help Superboy up off the floor.

"_Focus, _Guardian." Dick's voice was stern and as hard as concrete. "Once we find a way into the Reach's headquarters, you're all going to be in for the fight of your life."

It took Mal one second too long to realize that Dick had been warning him that Superboy had recovered and snuck up behind him while he was doing his victory dance. One hard clap over the ears, and the new Guardian was doing a face-plant.

Nightwing almost chuckled, circling around to the small square of padded surface reserved for La-gaan's sparring match with Cassie—Barbara's eyes narrowed critically at the sight of the hulking, puffer-fish blown green mutant vs. the small, hundred-fifteen pound teenage girl. A super powered teenage girl, admittedly, with the strength of a god, but still—Cassie did not have spikes sticking out of her flesh.

Wondergirl, to her credit, wasn't wavering at all at the prospect of fighting the newer, much more experienced team member—she looked like she couldn't wait to start. When Nightwing gave the signal, both of them lunged at each other and in a good five minutes, Cassie had picked up La-gaan by the shoulders and thrown him into the wall.

Barbara had done her best not to laugh.

When Nightwing finally stopped by Barbara and her partner, Blue Beetle, the tension that settled around the warehouse was almost tangible. The room was so quiet that she could almost hear Dick's footsteps as he padded towards them. "Blue Beetle. Batgirl. You'll be demonstrating evasive maneuvers for us. Because Blue's armor is so similar to what we've experienced with Black Beetle's armor, Batgirl will be demonstrating the best ways to avoid an adversaries attack. Blue," He nodded at Jaime, who shifted uncertainly in a very un-hero like way. "You know what to do."

Jaime shifted nervously from foot to foot for a moment longer before crying out so suddenly that Garfield spilled his dish of frozen yogurt all over

"I am not going to _incinerate _her, are you crazy?" Blue demanded of no one, glaring brazenly at the dusty red mat that separated him from Barbara. "Enough with the plasma cannons, enough with _eliminating_ people. She's on our side! ...Yes, we are sure of that... _Yes_, we are. Shut up!"

After getting some long, hard looks, Blue straightened up and apologized to Nightwing, who was smirking very knowingly. Barbara grinned, figuring she'd have to corner him later for answers about Blue's weird quirk of talking to his armor.

"Okay, Batgirl, your job is to evade Blue's advances. Do not attack. Blue… just try not to, er… _incinerate_ anything." He gave his signature Robin smirk and took a step back before shouting the command.

Babara dodged the first blast of whatever it was that blue shot at her by about a millimeter. She leapt back with a jerk as Blue's armor started to shift, to grow, transform like those little animated robot-cars that her brother used to play with, back before he went crazy.

"Batgirl, look out!" Cassie's cry is half-gleeful, half-suspenseful as she watches her friend skid across the mats and leap soundlessly to safety, just beyond Jaime's reach once again.

"See, the key isn't to outrun or attack your opponent." Nightwing was explaining, just as Barbara flipped up into the air, her hands latching onto the shoulders of Blue Beetle's armor as she swung the rest of her body over him, gracefully landing right behind the freshmen, if dangerously close.

In the end, though, Jaime wins the fight when Barbara gets in the way of his plasma cannon and she jumps off the mat to avoid being vaporized. While Jaime is cursing his suit in Spanish and apologizing to Barbara and Nightwing and the team at the same time, Barbara tries to see if there's anything salvageable about her singed cape.

It's then that she feels his breath against her ear and his arm wrapping around her.

At first she gets the warm, pleasant feeling she always does when he gets cuddly. And then she realizes that he's only attempting to correct her posture.

Barbara feels his hand pressed against her torso, just under her breasts, feels her heart hammering against his palm. "Try to stand a little straighter." He advises, and another shiver runs through her whole body as another hand reaches the base of her spine. "It leaves you free to rotate the upper half of your body more easily. You'll be able to fend off attacks much more easily."

At the sound of his voice, Barbara is filled with a sudden, sickening pang of dread. She recognizes that voice. It's the one he uses when he's talking to Batman, or when he's reporting the death of a civilian that was killed during a mission. The one that's so still and cold, so closed off it's like she can't touch him anymore. He's just fallen back into that dark, shadowy corner of himself where no one else can reach him.

She heard that voice in the months after Jason died, then again after Tula's death. But he's never used it so casually. Never used it while talking to her.

Any other day, when Nightwing was 'correcting' her sparring techniques, it usually involved him touching her. Touching her exactly like this and enjoying it way more than was considered appropriate. Usually, she'd have to give him a lecture about sexual harassment before she left the cave, (although her suggestions were ignored, more often than not.)

It doesn't feel like it used to when he put his hands on her. It feels like he doesn't want to keep them there. And when he steps back to stand with the others and tells them to keep going, she doesn't hear the words, 'I love you' in his voice. He could have been addressing the computer for all the emotion he put into that sentence.

And maybe that's what she deserves. Maybe she dragged this upon herself. She's always secretly hoped a little bit that Dick would someday move on to someone who deserved him. Someone who could tell him they loved him back.

But regardless, she's not going to let him get away with treating her like a damn rookie. So just when he starts to back up, she stops Jaime before he's restarted the fight.

"Hey, Wingnut," She says, hoping that the use of the teasing nickname will awaken something of the old Dick Grayson in him. It doesn't. He looks up at her with eyes that would have seemed blank and expressionless, even without the domino mask.

"Is there a problem, Batgirl?" He asks stiffly.

"I was thinking, Blue's having trouble enough figuring out his suit," She gestured to the poor, struggling teen hero who was arguing with his armor about why it would not have been 'preferable' to just 'eliminate' Barbara while she was talking with the team leader.

"…So why don't you and I just give the kids a one-on-one demonstration of evasive maneuvers?" She gave him a playful smile and hopped back up onto the mat, watching his shielded eyes follow her curiously.

"I guess there's no harm." Nightwing said indifferently, moving forwards out of the crowd as Blue gratefully shoved his way back into it, earning amused glances from Beast Boy at his fervent conversations with himself about why killing was wrong.

When they start to fight, it's nothing like how they've ever sparred before.

That is, not to say that it's their best match. When they're together, in synch, it's not a fight. It's a performance. A dance. A game. The way they fly through the air, the way they know how to predict the smallest of movements, a flick of a wrist, a kick, a well-aimed punch—it's uncanny.

This fight is nothing like that one. But it's certainly not forgettable either.

The first punch clips her hard in the side, throwing her back so that she lands flat on her back on the padded surface, knocking the wind out of her. Barbara gaspped for air like a beached fish and he waited for her to leap to her feet before again swinging his fist at her head hard enough to send her crashing into the wall. Fortunately, she didn't. Barbara ducked just in time, twisting under his arm, behind him, sending a well-aimed kick to his lower back out of pure instinct. He hardly stumbles, but it gives her the time she needs to get out of there.

Throughout the whole fight, Dick never really hurt her. But he wasn't exactly being gentle, either. Over the course of ten minutes, twenty, thirty, Barbara's back hits the mat hard enough to make her lungs deflate like balloons and her muscles ache from trying to drag herself into a standing position again.

She got the message. Dick was above actually inflicting any physical pain on Barbara, but he was not happy.

Richard Grayson was, (although she'd never admit it to him) was actually a very easy person to predict if you knew him well enough. Well, as well as she did anyways. The man had a temper that would flare up like a wildfire one minute, then extinguish itself on its own the next for completely inexplicable reasons. He usually even apologized afterwards.

The truth to it was that Dick, as damaged as he was by his past, just couldn't stay mad or upset or angry. He had always found some way to be happy—honestly, she still remembers the day that Alfred making breakfast for dinner had distracted Dick from the fact that all four of the team's missions that day had been a total disaster.

He wasn't being like that now. That was what scared her.

She wonders if things will ever be the same between them again. All smirks and wandering hands and whispered comment in each other's ears about how criminally tight the other's costume was. Of making out in the cave and terrifying poor Tim out of his mind. She wonders if she's ever going to break through the barrier he set up against anyone else—the one with masks and dark glasses and shadows. Of bat symbols.

When her back hits the mats again, all she can see are the blank, empty whites of his mask.

* * *

**A/N: I promise there will be a lot more action and dialogue in the next chapter. PS, sorry Lord of the books if I made you hate Babs. I'm trying not to make her whiney and mopey, because that is the one thing I cannot stand in a main female character. She was meant to come off more as tough and stubborn. Thanks for reviewing, everybody. I'm glad I managed to creep some of you out last time! (That is a good thing, right?) Ah, screw it, I'm just happy I can make you feel anything at all, even if it's discomfort!**


	8. Enigmatic

**It appears that the uploading fairy has been kind to all of you. I have a ton of homework this weekend, and what am I doing? Writing for this story. Well done, I hope you're all happy. Look what you've made me do now. (Enjoy!)**

* * *

"We need to talk." His voice is soft, his words empty. Barbara's gaze flickers upwards to the blank, vacant diamonds that cover his eyes and she wishes she could rip that damn mask off of his face, off of the rims of blue that she loves so much. The ones she misses so much.

But they're on a mission. Her options are kind of limited as of now.

"Now is not the time or place." She sets her jaw and stares down at the control panel of brightly colored buttons in front of her.

"That's what you said when we left the base." He accuses.

"Yes, because we were trying to rescue Artemis and Kaldur before they were found out by the Reach and killed." Barbara snaps back, busing herself by running her fingers pointlessly over the array of brightly colored buttons and reciting the periodic table of elements in her mind to avoid an outbreak of emotions from pouring out—she'd really rather not start screaming and apologizing and crying right now, as they're on a mission and that would be hardly appropriate.

Nightwing had assigned everyone on the team a partner, deploying them to different cities all over the world shortly after their brief, (and shockingly successful) plan to rescue Artemis/Tigris from the Reach.

Around the world, twenty Reach devices had begun to damage the Earth's magnetic field, causing various types of natural disasters. Every hero had been called in to split into teams of two, each duo carrying one of twenty devices provided by Lex Luthor that would shut down the machines.

And of course Nightwing had decided that they were going to be a team, because what better time to discuss their relationship than during the beginning of an impending apocalypse?

Sometimes, she'd like to know what's going on in that brilliant head of his, just out of curiosity.

Their last fight had not ended well. Back at the cave, right before Nightwing had deployed all of the team together in a mission to sneak into the Reach headquarters, they had finished their fight. Something of a combat exercise gone wrong.

It had started with Blue Beetle cursing at the scarab and fighting to keep his armor under control, and Barbara inviting Nightwing to train with her instead. It had ended with a hard thud as Barbara's back slammed against the mat, Nightwing straddling her with both of her wrists pinned above her head.

What happened after that was something Barbara was completely unprepared for. Something that Barbara could never have seen coming, something she had dreaded would happen from the first second that her back hit the mat.

Nothing happened.

Nightwing had climbed up off of her and headed back to the team, beginning to sort them into groups and assign positions for when they attempted to rescue Kaldur and Artemis. He hadn't looked at her, hadn't acknowledged her, hadn't given his usual pointers or criticism like he usually did when he beat her in training. Usually, when Dick got her pinned to the mats during combat practice, (which happened more often then she cared to admit,) he didn't willingly let her up. Often, she would have to lie there, crushed under his weight and listening to him cackle and goad her into playing the guessing game, a favorite gamble of his that he never let her win. She remembered how annoying he was when he did that, how adorable, how… just… Richard…

_"Get off of me, Grayson." Barbara groaned in exasperation._

_"No."_

_"I can hurt you." She warned, struggling under the rib-crushing pressure of him lying fully on top of her._

_"Don't make threats you can't enforce, love." He teased, bringing her hands up over her head and pinning them to the hard, dusty surface of the mat they were lying on._

_"Grayson, listen to me very closely." Barbara gasped as Dick caught the hard covering of kevlar protecting her neck with his teeth in a quick, gentle nip. "I. Will. Kill. You. Now let me up."_

_Dick frowned down at her thoughtfully and shifted back and forth on his arms a little so that while she was still tightly pinned to the mats, he wasn't crushing the life out of her. "Barbara, in the event that you're ever being pinned to the ground by a stronger, physically superior adversary, you probably shouldn't mention that you intend to kill them before asking them to let you go."_

_"Ugh, you jerk!" Barbara rolled her eyes and tried to push him off again, but he just chuckled and relaxed fully on top of her._

_After a few moments of her writhing against him, hands pulling at his hair and fingers digging into his skin Barbara realized that the freak was actually getting off on this. "Barb, you're really not doing yourself any favors by struggling." Dick warned, his voice husky and his eyes going dark with lust as Barbara's hips pressed tighter against his._

_Barbara tried to turn her amused grin into a spiteful growl. "That had better be your utility belt pressing against my leg, O fearless leader."_

_"Or else what?" He smirked haughtily. "You going to try to escape again?"_

_"Let me up." Barbara tried again. If looks could kill, she's fairly certain Dick Grayson would be begging for his life._

_"What's the magic word?"_

_"There is something wrong with you."_

_Dick sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, no. It's either guess the password, or follow up on your 'or else' threat, Red."_

_Barbara glared up at him with so much spiteful, amused irritation that Dick honestly should have seen it coming when she threw back her head and started shouting._

_"Tim! Come here!" She laughed as Dick struggled to hold her wrists to the mat with one hand and cover her mouth with the other. "Tim! I need you! Come here!"_

_"Shhhh!" Dick ordered, wrestling her into a deep, one-sided kiss that left her short of breath and rasping out calls for Tim in a broken whisper._

_It took a few moments of struggling and arguing and not-too-nice names and insults thrown in each other's direction, but somehow the two ended up making out._

_Dick groaned and fisted his hands in her long hair, his breathing shallow and his hips bucking roughly against hers. "Damn, Barbara." He moaned in her ear as she hiked a leg up around his waist, then both then gave him a sultry grin before rolling her hips against him slowly._

_Barbara had cleverly changed tactics, rubbing herself against him like a cat, purring pleasantly and tugging his ear between her teeth in the way she knew drove him wild. If threatening Richard didn't work, she could at least hope that his favorite kind of bribery would be effective._

_"Okay, Gordon." Dick had grunted through gritted teeth, both of them oblivious to the echoing sounds of footsteps coming closer. "There's no way you're getting up now."_

_A shout from the doorway made them both shout in horror, Dick rolling off of Barbara as she struggled to climb to her feet._

_The look on Tim's face suggested that he had just witnessed his brother having dry sex in the bat cave—which he basically had. "I—I just wanted to get my homework…" He had gestured helplessly towards his locker at the other end of the cave. "I didn't… I'll just… Mount justice." He pointed towards the zeta tubes and sulked off._

"Barbara, look at me." Dick said quietly, his voice so much more solemn and strained than it ever should be. Richard Grayson should never sound like that. He was supposed to be strong, intuitive, confident, funny, careless, annoying. He never should sound like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. If he did, then she was to blame.

"I can't, I'm flying this thing." Barbara had tried to sound distracted, her fists tightening around the glowing orbs of glass that Megan, until now, had used to control the bioship.

"Barbara, I put the thing on autopilot ten minutes ago." Richard said gently.

There. That had sounded more like him. Caring, kind, tentative, but never hesitant. No, Richard Grayson had never had a problem sharing every damn emotion going through his head. He made sure she knew. Barbara was happy to pretend that her feelings didn't exist, or at least set them aside so she could focus on the task at hand. Why couldn't he?

She turned to look at him, and even with the mask she can see the pain and confusion in his eyes. And what does the thoughtful, frustratingly perfect boyfriend say?

"Barbara, I'm sorry." Dick says.

There it is. Yes, she's fairly certain now that there is no way in hell that he hates her more than she hates herself.

"Barbie. Please, talk to me." Richard pleads.

Yep. Because she's all about the worldly sharing of feelings. She doesn't know what to say. 'Sorry' is something she says to Dick when she's late for training. 'Sorry' is something she says to him when she talks out of term, or when she screws up during missions. She can't just apologize for dredging up the most miserable experience of his life and using it against him in a fit of rage, all out of spite and self-gratification. How can she apologize for _this_?

"Richard…" Barbara looks straight ahead, staring at the cloudless stretch of gray set before them and focusing solely on that, because she won't cry, she _won't_ cry, she can't let him know she cares. She remembers the cat, Alaska, remembers the crack that made an X over his heart, concentrates on the reason she can't tell him everything. Because she needs to protect him.

Either that or she's going crazy. At this point, the latter seems more likely than she'd care to admit.

"Barbara."

"Why do you keep doing this?" A humorless laugh that's almost a dry sob tears its way out of her throat. She can feel his eyes on her, but she won't look at him. "Richard, why can't you let me go? I'm… I'm no good for you, all I do is make you miserable, so why can't you just give up?"

He laughed at that. A laugh like hers. Empty and tired. "Barbara…" He shakes his head and runs his hand through his unruly black hair, like she's just said something amusing and doesn't know it yet. "Barbara, I gave up on you a long time ago."

This startled her. Her fingers skidded over the controls and her heart fluttered a little faster. "What?" She asked, half-hopeful, half-frightened.

He shakes his head. "Babs, I know that we're never going to end up together. I know that you don't give a damn whether I live or die. I know… But just because someone doesn't love you doesn't mean you don't love_ them_." He takes in a breath and Barbara feels like all the air has been sucked from her lungs.

"Richard Grayson." She finally gets out, "There are so many things wrong in all of what you've just said… I don't even know where to start."

"I _tried_ to stop, God knows I _tried_." He says breathlessly, his eyes fixed on the ground at her feet, his expression twisted in pain.

"I'm trying to apologize." Barbara tried to shift tactics. "I… the way I spoke to you in front of the team was not acceptable, Nightwing… that was out of line. And afterwards… I behaved childishly and recklessly. I just—"

"Stop." The tone of his voice is almost pleading. "If… if I hadn't done that—hadn't lied to the team or done any of the things I did… would things have been different between us? Did I ruin it? Or wouldn't it have mattered?"

The look on his face nearly kills her. She tries to distract herself, focusing on the sharp-edged corner of his mask. It's very interesting. She is concentrating solely on that corner.

"No." She breathes, because she believes it will spare him pain. She hears the intake of breath and tries as hard as she can not to break down right then. "It is… what it is, Richard. We will never be any more than just… this."

"And what is _this_?" Richard's next words are angry, harsh, almost sarcastic. Dick was rarely angry and never sarcastic.

"Richard—"

"Because apparently _this_ is enough for you to sleep with me, but when it comes to expressing one goddamn emotion—"

"Let's just focus on staying alive for the next twenty-four hours." Barbara suggested through gritted teeth. "And then we can sort all this out."

He stares at her for a long moment. Then he turns around in his seat and faces the small dot of gray on the horizon that is Star City. "I'm losing you, Barb."

She won't cry.

* * *

The fight is anything but brief.

She should know better than to assume otherwise by now.

Barbara screams out in pain as the glowing, laser-edge of one of the enemy's blades slices across her back, shredding her cape and burning deep into her skin. There are too many of them. Thirty at least, creatures smaller than Black Manta, in similar armor with glowing, slanted red eyes.

Far away, she can hear Dick crying out in surprise as one of them lunges at his back, and she draws out a batarang with the intent to help before he practically rips the robot in half, tossing it aside. He really is beautiful when he fights. His eyes always take on this hard, proud gleam, and even though he has his mask on she knows it's there. His jaw tenses and every muscle is ridged, expecting pain, but every so often she can see the vaguest flicker of a smile when he knocks out another one of Manta's goons.

It's raining, hard. Even with the floods of water coming down and the howling of the wind caused by the machine they're supposed to deactivate, she can still smell the irony tang of blood in the air, feel the sharp, small claws tearing through the fabric of her suit.

She throws a punch wildly and it somehow connects with the hard metal. She feels the iron covering of her gloves breaking and feels blood tricking over her knuckles. The creatures squeal and leap off of her long enough for her to leap up into the air. It's a move she's practiced hundreds of times with Tim and Dick before, but she's never tried it in combat. She leaps up as high as she can and spins her lower body around, kicking one of the robot's heads clear off of its shoulders but nearly snapping her leg in half on the next one.

She collapses, crying out, her hands flying for the utility belt for a batarang that's not there.

The device in her left hand, the one given to the team by Lex Luthor, is clenched tightly in her left hand. It's the one that will turn off the Reach's machine, and she doesn't even know if it's going to work. She does know that when one of Black Manta's goons reaches out for it, she lands a punch in its armor that goes straight through its chest. The wiring inside it's body nearly electrocutes her, and the spark hurts like a bitch, but it's worth it.

And then one of them is on top of her, pinning her against the asphalt and the wet, sharp gravel is digging into the back of her neck as the other wrestles the device away from her and it goes clattering across the pavement. She thinks she shouts, cries out as it disappears into the high grass of Star Park, calls for Dick. She's not sure if it's for her to help him or for him to help her.

She's discovering that it's hard to fight with only one fist and an ankle that may be fractured.

The wind is still howling, the rain is still pouring down on her, her body is throbbing in pain and she can't see where Dick is. The machine is going to bring Star city down on itself. Hundreds of thousands of people. Dead, because she couldn't handle a few robots.

It happens so suddenly she can't even comprehend whether it's real or not.

Because all at once, they're all gone. All of Black Manta's goons let out this horrible screeching sound, full of beeps and sparks and computer-like noises that remind her of the time she accidently spilled coffee on a copy machine. In her dazed, broken state, Barbara wonders if it's the rain water that has made all of the goons collapse.

And then she sees him.

It's _him_.

It's James.

He stands a few meters away, and even with the sheets of rain pouring down from the sky she knows it's him.

She'd recognize her own brother.

There were two things in his hands. One is a black, heavy-looking remote with blinking red lights, which she assumed was what he had used to get rid of the goons. In his other hand, there's the device. The one from Lux Luthor, that's their only hope of shutting down the machine and saving the city.

He's covered in a heavy brown overcoat, soaked with rain. Sleek, pale red hair she wishes she didn't recognize is plastered to his forehead. And when the pale, colorless eyes of her _dead brother_ find hers, she can't even find enough strength to scream.

He stands behind the device, the whiz of the machine making Dick's voice behind her almost inaudible. James is hardly any taller, still scrawny and sick-looking, with skin too pale to be real and an inhuman-like twist to his features—his jaw is always clenched, his eyes always blank. But now, the corner of his flat, thin mouth is drawn up in the crooked imitation of a smirk, and his shaggy red bangs have grown out, obscuring her view of his glassy eyes.

As she watches, lost in a state of confusion that is only a step away from panic, Barbara's dead brother raises one finger to his lips, the universal sign for 'quiet.' He holds up his other hand, pale, bony fingers… wrapped around the device. The one from Lex Luthor, which will turn off the Reach's machines before they bring the world crumbling in on itself.

"Don't—" The plea has barely left her lips before James's arm comes down. He attaches the hand-held panel of metal onto the Reach's machine with one swipe of his hand, and Barbara's breath catches in her throat as she struggles to comprehend what she's seeing.

He was crazy. He was a hero. James had killed Tula and threatened Dick, died and here he was, saving her life and the lives of

But it was him. Her dead brother. Oversized coat, shaggy hair, glasses and all. He was there.

And then he was gone.

The machine shut down, the whirring noise ceased, and with a dejected buzz, the machine shut off. The earth stopped trembling, Dick stopped shouting, Black Manta's goons slowed down.

But Barbara's heart rate didn't.

Dick finishes the rest of them off almost effortlessly, and when she feels his arms around her she knows that he hasn't seen James. He thinks it was her.

"Good job." He's praising, a hint of a tired, dazed smile flickering across his lips. He has one hand on her hip, the other moving all over her body in search of injuries. "Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding? There's blood on my fingers. Barbara." His voice is more insistent now, demanding attention as he tries to pull apart the rips in her costume in search of injury.

"Richard." She breathes, taking his face in her hands. She's still dizzy and confused and scared out of her mind, but that's not going to stop her from prolonging the moment.

When he kissed her, she could still taste blood and rainwater and metal. She didn't care.

"Hold me." Barbara ordered, twisting her arms around his neck and moving as close to him as possible. She doesn't want to have to leave, have to face another day. She doesn't want to think about this, doesn't want to sort any of this out. Doesn't want to think about James, or the cat, or the crack in the picture frame. She just wants to think about the boy in her arms.

And, like he always did, Dick had to take that silent moment and shatter it.

"I'm losing you, Barbara." Dick murmured.

She's about to respond when there's a scratch of static and she leaps back out of his arms as his communicator blinks to life and the frantic voice of a terrified speedster breaks through.

"Boss!" It's Impulse's voice that bursts through the intercom. "Dick' we've got a problem!" There's static, then heavy breathing as Dick tries to get a coherent word out of Bart.

"Impulse, where are you? Have you got all twenty of the Reach's—"

"There are twenty-_one_ of them!" Bart nearly shouts, and Barbara realizes that it's not just wind that's muffling the sound of his voice through the intercom. It sounds like rain, or snow, like something is whipping down towards the ground and slowing him down.

"What? Where are you?" Barbra nearly shouts into the device in her own wrist, trying to connect to Impulse's communicator. "Bart, what's going on?"

"Blue found it." Impulse pants. "Boss… you've gotta get down here. It's Wally… he's…"

"What?" Dick asks sharply, his body stiffening against Barbara's. "What about Wally."

"Boss… he's in trouble."

* * *

**A/N—sorry about how I constantly switch from past to present-tense—I just do it for some frustrating reason and can't be bothered to go back and change it. I will if you want me to, though. So, creepy, right? Am I right? Is James creepy? Thanks for reading!**


	9. Hide and seek

**So, this is much more of a Barbara-centered chapter, despite it being very emotional for all the Wally-lovers such as myself. There are only two chapters left before the grand finale, so don't worry—plenty of time for Dick and Babs. I read all your reviews and I have to thank everyone for their advice—I take everyone's input into serious consideration. Enjoy!**

* * *

Heroes aren't supposed to fall like this.

In the movies, in the many books she's read, heroes die in fiery explosions. In a brilliant flash of light. From a bullet, or blood loss, or the blade of a knife. It was almost always in the form of a sacrifice—giving up your own life, for someone you loved more than yourself.

Nightwing told her when she first joined the team, that some missions were worth it and some weren't. "There are some things people will fight for." He had said. Then he had stared at her with that ice-blue, dead-serious gaze that brought super villains to their knees. "And there are other things that people will die for."

Heroes aren't supposed to fall because someone didn't get there in time. Wally shouldn't have died just because no one could save him.

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

She's standing at the subway station when she gets the call. She's just gotten out of the lady's room of the local Goodwill, having climbed in through the window and stuffed her batgirl costume back into a duffel bag. She was fairly well aquainted with Goodwill at this point—even with her part-time job working at the library, Barbara got most of her clothes at the salvation army. She had unceremoniously tugged on a shirt and her hoodie, her only protection against the biting cold outside on the streets of Gotham. Her jeans, which were covered in pen-marks and marker-stains from when she had them during her high-school days are being held together with safety pins, but they would work for the time being.

She's not in any rush, really. She got a call from Kaldur while she was changing, and he had told her that something was going on, but that all the machines had been deactivated and he was sure that whatever was going on in the Artic was nothing to worry about.

So she didn't worry.

After patching herself up and making sure she had sustained no serious injuries, (her ribs are bruised, but whatever, it's nothing less than what she had expected,) she mills about a little before she heads for the subway. Goes to the Book Nook and buys a good armload of reading material (because Kindle Fires are evil and are destroying book stores everywhere.)

She throws a couple bucks into an empty guitar case when she passes the terrible musician on the street corner who's butchering her favorite Beetle's song. Honestly, she's paying him to stop but he takes this as encouragement and just howls out the song louder.

Oh well. At least he doesn't try to mug her. It _is_ Gotham city, after all.

Of course, the idea that she'll actually make it back to her apartment without getting harassed is just a joke. Dare to dream, she guesses. About halfway to the subway some punks with bars through their tongues and spiked hair dyed every color of the rainbow cross her path, apparently assuming that she, quote-on-quote, was 'up for some foursome fun, _sugar_.'

She had smoothly and calmly told the leader of the gang that if he honestly thought that he was getting anywhere near her, _"Tinkerbelle,"_ then he and his right hand were going to be taking it to the next level tonight.

Looking back on it, she realizes that it was probably not the smartest thing she could have said under the circumstances. One thing leads to another, and pretty soon she's fighting a group of juvenile delinquents each twice her size.

Once again, not the brightest thing she could have done. But _damn,_ if this doesn't make it all go away. It hurts, of course, extra pressure on her sore wrists and her aching ribs and pounding head. She feels exhausted. But there's blood on her knuckles and adrenaline in her blood and she couldn't care less.

She ends up having to run, because she's not inhuman and she's used to having her team back her up. Her body is sore and aching, and by the time she gets away and makes it down into the subway she feels ready to pass out. Why is it that these people always have to jump out at her at the most inopportune moments?"

Like she said, it's Gotham. She doesn't know what she had expected.

It's freezing down in the subway. It smells like iron and newly fallen snow and rusty train rails. Everywhere where she doesn't see adds for Christmas sales (in October, really?) there are little kids in puffy coats tugging on their parent's sleeves.

She's on the train headed uptown when her phone rings.

"Hey, buddy." She says brightly, sweetly, feeling a sudden pang of guilt and self-consciousness as she remembers their last fight—if she could even call it that. "Are you alright?"

For a moment, there's dead silence, and she wonders if he's hung up. "Hello?" She asks, standing up out of her seat and walking back to the near-empty space at the back of the compartment. Looping her arm around one of the poles, she puts her phone up to her ear and asks for him again. "Dick? Honey, are you okay?"

"Barbara." His voice sounds choked. Dead. Tortured.

"What is it?"

"We… we were shutting down the last… ah, God, _Barbara_." His voice trails off and he breathes out in a deep, sobbing noise that makes her heart freeze and flutter and stop.

She asks him a question, she's not sure what.

He answers, confirming her worst fears.

And then she feels like the walls of the train are falling in around her.

"Wally's dead." She repeats, her voice echoing off the windows of the small, confined space. A few people glance up from their smart phones, a few parents stand up to lead their children into the next compartment, but fortunately, there's not much overall response.

"He… Barbara…" Dick sounds like he's been hit with a freight train. He doesn't know what to do.

"Where are you?" Barbara coaxed, steadying herself on the handrail as the train screeched to a stop. As people started pouring in and out through the doors of the car, a few made the mistake of trying to sit in the back with her.

She must have had this _look_ about her, the one Dick always teases her about, because everyone who comes near her almost immediately springs out of their seats and huddles towards the front of the subway car.

"Oh sweetheart… where are you?" Barbara murmured, glancing over her shoulder.

"I'll explain everything at the watchtower." He says, his tone more short and collected as he hangs up without another word.

She slips her phone back into her jacket pocket and gets of the train at the next stop. It's so cold that she feels like the tears are freezing in her eyes before she can blink them away. She shoulders her way through the crowd of people heading home from work and out to dinner and to the park with their dogs. Their problems are limited to bills and Facebook and when the next Tom Cruise movie was coming out. Not shallow, but simple. Ignorant.

Now, one of the oldest members of the team is dead, and Dick… oh, God, Dick…

Stuffing her hands into her pockets, her fingers toy with a stray scrap of paper in the lining as she remembers Dick's best guy friend.

She remembers the countless times Dick, Wally, and Jason Todd had played halo and screamed at the console while she tried to do her homework. Remembers getting caught in the cross-fire of Dick and Wally's 'marshmallow-gun war,' in which Wally ate most of his ammo and Dick wasn't hit once. Remembers how Wally would sit on his spot on the couch with Artemis curled up on his lap in the later hours of the night, telling bad jokes and scarfing down popcorn at record speed.

A thousand images of the speedster flirting with her in front of Artemis and paying for it later. Of his goofy, cliché sense of humor and his obsession with fried ice cream.

Barbara's fingers twist around the scrap of paper in her pocket before she drags it out, scraping her hand on the zipper as she tried to unfold it. It's thin and fluttering, probably an old receipt that she shouldn't care if it's tugged out of her hands and lost in the wind.

She does care, though. She smooths out the crumpled folds of paper and skims her eyes over the familiar, red-inked chicken scratch. She memorizes the numbers, recognizing them as coordinates before wadding the paper and tossing it into a sewer grate.

She veered around the corner, into a narrow alley between two buildings, both of which splattered with dark stains that looked suspiciously like blood.

They used to play this game, as children. Some kids may have counted to ten then looked under the table, in the closet, searching for their siblings in a game of hide and seek. The Gordon children had drawn each other maps and coordinates, then one hid while the other used a compass to find where the other was. Even at the age of seven and five, they had played this way.

James was always creative when it came to hiding places, too. Most little boys would hide behind the curtains or the couch. James had managed to wedge himself into the air vents, up the chimney (which had fortunately been electric) and even inside one of the wooden cabinets in her father's office—much to their mother's dismay.

So when she sees the pair of pale, colorless eyes flickering down at her from the fire escape on the opposite wall, she's less than surprised.

"Got your coordinates." Barbara says, tossing the note onto the rough brick street, where it flutters into a puddle and sinks. She reaches up to wipe the sheen of cold sweat off her forehead. "What do you want?"

There's a swishing sound of cloth and a faint splash as James leaps to the ground effortlessly. "Oh, you got that, did you?" He asks, and her blood turns to ice at the sound of his voice.

He's here. He's alive. She's crazy.

James takes a step further into the light. He's taller than when they had last spoken, although equally as skinny. The collar of his shirt is ripped off and his hair is ruffled characteristically. Teeth gleam at her like the Cheshire cat's grin when he speaks again. "You're probably wondering how I survived?" He prompts.

She can't speak, so she nods.

James shakes his head, letting out a low, dark chuckle. "It's funny what people will believe, just because they want to." He says, shoving his glasses up the end of his nose.

"What do you mean?" Barbara asks, finally finding her voice.

"I mean, it's just human nature. Everyone wanted to believe I was dead, so no one looked for me after that fall."

"James, no one wanted to believe you were dead—"

"Oh, I'm not offended." He corrects lightly, jamming his hands into his jean pockets and rocking back and forth on his feet. "Gave me some time. Gave me some time to think."

"About what? You're next attempt at murder?" Her voice had more of an edge to it this time.

James huffed a laugh. "You say 'attempt' like I would ever actually fail." He goes silent for a moment, staring at a pool of water at her feet, illuminated by the far-off streetlight.

"James, what do you want?" Barbara repeated.

He looked up, and this time all the casual 'hi, I'm back from the dead' cheeriness was gone from his expression. "You know what I want, Barbara."

"Not really." She says cockily. When in doubt, patronize.

He looks up at her, and for the first time since she's saw him die, he's never had so much life in his eyes. He's angry. "You know what you did to me." He snarled.

"What?"

"You took away everything I cared about."

She jerks back in surprise. As far as Barbara knew, the only things James had ever cared about were their parents, herself, and the cat. Whom he had strangled.

"What did I take away from you?" Barbara demands, hoping to god that her voice doesn't break now.

"You know what!" His teeth are bared like a wild animals, his eyes flashing.

"Is this about… mom? It's not my fault she left, it's not my fault Dad's never around, James are you—"

"Not _them_." James spat out, sounding disgusted. "Our mother was nothing to me. Our father was even less. I endured Alaska and tolerated you. I'm talking about _her_. You took her away."

"I took who away?" Barbara asks softly.

"Gone, now. Gone forever." James murmurs quietly, lowering his eyes again. He becomes transfixed with the puddle near her feet, and for a moment, his eyes glazed over almost in an expression of bliss.

"James…" She began, and his expression of pure tranquility shattered.

"But that's all going to change." His thin lips stretched to reveal a deadly grin. "I'm going to avenge her. You're going to pay for what you've taken from me."

"And what have I taken from you?" Barbara gritted out, taking a step forwards so they were face to face.

"Everything." He growls. "And so I am going to take away _your_ everything, Barbara. Starting with Richard Grayson and just working down the line until there's nothing left of you. Until you beg me to let you join them."

He was crazy. Or she was. Both were likely. Barbara narrowed her eyes and forced herself to take control of the situation, the way she had seen Nightwing do countless times. She leaned forwards and glared into his empty eyes that could have been dead.

"Go ahead and _try_ Jimmy." She snarls. With that, she spun on her heel and started to walk away, the hairs on the back of her neck pricking up as she tried not to look back, tried not to burst into a run but maintain the slow, steady pace.

"I'm not alone, you know!" He calls after her. "You think I'm powerless, you think that it's just me. But I _will _take them away from you, Barbara. Every last one. We all will."

She stops, a shudder of fear rushing through her at the word 'we.' "He's done nothing to you." She calls, loud enough to be heard. She hates herself for playing into his game. But she's done everything she can to keep James from knowing how she feels about Dick.

Clearly, she hadn't done enough.

"Him, I'm going to take my time with." James grinds out. "He's fast. Agile. One of the best known fighters the Justice League has ever seen." Against her will, Barbara finds herself walking towards him again. "But there's strength in numbers. And he's only human." He pauses for effect before smiling again. "I just can't decide whether I'm going to kill him first, or save him for last. It's such a—"

James was cut off in a shout of pain and shock as Barbara grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him up against the wall, the metal ladder of the fire escape clanging loudly off of it. Her fingers crept up to his throat, holding him there easily with one hand. James was clever. He was sadistic. He was ruthless. But he wasn't particularly strong.

"Listen to me, and listen carefully." Barbara whispers, her fingers tightening slightly over James' pulse. "I don't know how you're alive. I don't know whether you killed Tula, or if you helped me during the mission today, or this is all a hallucination."

James scrabbles against the wall, his fingers clawing at the hand wrapped around his throat as Barbara tightened her grip again. "But I do know this." Her voice dropped to an even deadlier tone. "That hero, Nightwing? If you hurt him, there will be no lie, no deal, no cleverly conceived escape attempt that will save you. There will be no big, scary villain for you to hide behind."

He was looking up, and she loosened her grip for a moment, just enough for him to suck in another gulp of air before restricting his airways again.

"But so help me," Barbara growled again, ignoring him as he tried to gesture upwards above her head, "If you try to take his life, then there will be no safe place for you on this earth. If you try to kill him, I will hunt you down."

He lets out a strangled, wheezing noise, and Barbara drops her arm from his trachea. He choked and splutters for a moment before pointing up again, and she finds herself looking up at the buildings high above her head, between the woven network of clotheslines and stars, she can count eight of them. Eight shadowed figures, carrying hazy black shapes and bearing masks that look like blindfolds.

Snipers. And those probably aren't the only ones.

"How long have they been here?" She demands.

"As long as I've wanted them." James responds, coughing slightly. "They're under my control." He looks at her knowingly, his words almost sounding reluctant. "I can't kill you yet, you know. But you can't stop me. Nothing can stop me now."

She abandons her plan to walk calmly away, forgets about her resilience to appear collected and unaffected. She turns and runs, knowing that James's eyes are still on her.

"The storm is rising, Barbara." James yelled to her retreating back. "You can't run from us! You can't run from what you've done! We _will_ find you. Now _everyone_ is going to pay."

* * *

**A/N—so, only one chapter to go, the moment you've all been waiting for! Don't worry, it's purely Dick and Babs centered, for those of you who aren't James Junior fans. Actually may get into some M rated stuff, depending on what you guys think. Anyways, I'll update soon. Don't worry—our favorite girl-bat and boy-wonder can't stay apart for long!**


	10. The ring

**Rating—may be some M-rated stuff in this one guys. Huge step out of my comfort zone, but I think I did okay. Hope it doesn't come off as too graphic-but this story really needed some intimacy.**

**A/N—So, I've been sick in bed all day and just started writing to stay occupied. I have to apologize for the last few chapters, any grief I may have caused—I am a firm believer that there are two kinds of Young Justice fans—those who cried when Wally died, and those who won't ADMIT that they cried when Wally died. Anyways, I'm feeling pretty awful, so some feedback would be nice on this one. Thanks!**

"You're here." Dick murmurs, barely loud enough to be heard over the icy winter wind.

She remembers sitting here almost a year ago, in the frigid cold wrapped only in a sweater, waiting for him to get home to her. Waiting to see that smile, the one that told her without a word that she was his favorite person in the world.

"I'm here." She says. She rises, shivering as the falling snowflakes burn against her bare skin. She's still clad in her ratty jacket and jeans, and she can see the spray of bright white snow covering her loose, choppy red hair.

He's standing before her in clothes also far too light for late November, his eyelashes and hair dusted white and the underside of his eyes splotchy red. She knows he'll try to pass it off as cold, while the truth is just that he doesn't want her to see him cry.

He drops his duffle into the snow with a soft thumping noise, and he folds his arms in front of his chest almost defensively before asking. "What are you doing here, Batgirl? You should be up at the Watch Tower with the rest of the team."

"Dick, I know." She said kindly, stepping off the ice-slicked metal stairs and taking a careful step towards him. "I know about Wally. Remember… you told me? I… I thought you'd want me to come over..."

He took a step back, his gaze fixed on some far off space to his right, refusing to meet her eyes. "So," he continued, after a moment, looking at his hands, the snow, the icy-gray sky—anywhere but her. "Why did you think I wanted you over?"

Barbara wrapped her arms a little tighter around herself and gave him a soft, comforting smile. "I just thought… you might want some company… thought you may want to talk."

"Oh." He said, nodding. "So you want to _talk._ That's great."

"Dick—" Barbara began cautiously. "Do… can I come in and talk to you?"

"I… guess." He said, in a tone that suggested this was a foreign concept—like she hadn't spent the night there dozens of times before. But he nods to her in acknowledgement before dipping down to swipe up his duffle out of the snow and head after her up the stairs.

His movements, his voice, his entire demeanor is cold and clipped, like it is when she screws up on a mission and puts herself in harm's way. There was nothing in his voice that suggested that he had just lost his best friend. Nothing that revealed what she already knew—Dick had had a part of his soul ripped away when Wally died.

He tossed his duffle on the couch when she closed the door behind him, and Dick ran a hand through his hair almost lazily before tossing his keys onto the counter. "I was planning on calling Zatanna. Thought we could have a few drinks, maybe… spend some time together."

Barbara nods. The irony of these words are not wasted on her. Zatanna never comes over to casually 'spend some time together' with Dick. On the nights that she isn't here, Barbara knows better than to assume that Dick's bed is empty. He can't have her, he knows, but that doesn't do anything to satisfy his overwhelming need for touch, intimacy, love. He had been denied that for most of his young-adult life. Now that Dick resembles what most girls refer to as 'A modern-day Adonis,' he has no trouble getting as much forged, faked love and affection as he wants.

Overall, she blames Bruce.

Barbara often expressed her opinion of Bruce's parenting methods; about how he had never paid enough attention to Dick as a child and that he had seriously damaged the kid.

Of course Dick would never hear a word of it. He would defensively ask her to give an example of how Bruce was a bad mentor or parent, to which Barbara had smartly replied, "You started fighting crime before you were out of elementary school. Think about that. There is something wrong there."

They would argue and tease and eventually let it go, aside from one memorable occasion when Barbara, in a mood of exasperation and haughtiness had instead told Dick, "Whatever. Bruce's parenting skills aside, _our_ kids are never going to—" She had caught herself a second too late, looking up to see her favorite crooked grin, marred by a mischievous smirk and a crackle of light in his eyes.

The smug bastard had smirked for a week after that.

All that it had been was a fantasy. But now… there was no reason for her to hide. James junior _knew_. He knew about Dick. He had threatened him. He had warned Barbara that he was going to hurt everyone close to her, starting with Dick Grayson. So what was the point in trying to hide it now?

Barbara drew in a deep breath and crossed the room towards Dick, fisting her hands in the front of his shirt and tugging him down towards her. She reached up with one hand, trying to run her fingers through his hair.

He jerked away, clasping her wrists in her palms and lowering them slowly to her sides. "Why are you here?" He asked shortly.

There was an initial moment of silence before Barbara managed to get her bearings. "I'm here for you." She forced a weak smile, moving forwards towards him and reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck.

He froze, unresponsive, his body tensing away from the contact as she wraps her arms around his neck and twists her fingers into his hair. "It's okay, buddy." She soothes. "I'm here."

"No, that's the problem." He said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

She _feels_ like a child when he says this. Not because he's patronizing her, but because the force of this blow actually _hurts her feelings_. And she feels stupid and overly sensitive when she thinks of it in terms like that, but as common as passive-aggressive insults were amongst her friends, he never treated her like this, even when he was teasing. Dick had always been sweet and serious.

"I'm sorry." She decides to go on defensive, folding her arms and looking down at the ground.

"S'okay." He mutters gruffly, not making any moves to take of his jacket or shoes. She's good a reading body-language; what she finds confuses her. He's acting distant, uncomfortable, impatient, three words used commonly to describe Jason Todd, but never Dick.

"Richard, sweetheart—" She began in that soft, honey-sweet voice she used while she was working at the library, doing the read-aloud circle-groups with three to five year olds. Not patronizing, not deprecating, just soft. Coaxing.

Dick shrugs her of when she tries to put a hand on her shoulder. "Will you just stop screwing me around?" He finally bursts out, jerking away and shoving her arm off, his hands shooting up to run through his hair instinctively.

Barbara flinched back, her lower back hitting the counter top. Dick paced a step, then turned around to face her, then quickly turned away. Not soon enough, however—she could see the shots of red in his eyes and the blotchy, ruddy pink covering his cheeks that told her that tears were coming. "Just for once, could you not… could you not _play_ around with my head…"

"What are you—" Barbara began helplessly.

"Wally is _dead_, Barbara! My best friend, the only fucking person on this planet who I _know_ for sure cares about me… my _brother_, and God, you think you can just drop by, screw me senseless, and everything's going to be okay again?"

"Dick, I'm not here because—"

"I don't _want_ you to be here, why does no one understand? Why Wally? What the hell did he do to deserve this—he saved us all, and… and… just like Tula… just like Jason…all my fault… it was _all _my fault…"

"Richard John Grayson." Barbara cut in sternly. "I don't care if you want to yell at me. I don't care if you hate me, I don't care if you punch my lights out, because honestly that's what I would be doing if I were in your position right now." She says honestly.

Her voice remains steady but she takes a tentative, hesitating step forwards, as if approaching a rabid animal that may attack her at any second. "But don't you_ dare_," She leaned forwards, reaching a hand out to steady him before he could pull out of her reach, "Ever blame yourself for what happens. I see you out there, every day. You make dumb sacrifices. You blame yourself for everything, you try to save everyone. _This wasn't your fault_, Dick. I read the report. If there was anything you could have done to save Wally, you would have done it, and died trying."

There was a long, silent pause as Barbara drew back to study his expression and Dick continued to study the empty space right above her right shoulder, where he wouldn't have to look her in the eyes.

"So," Dick eventually looked at her, his voice scathingly sarcastic but his tone void of any hint of humor. "Is this the part where we take off our clothes and get into bed? Because I'm really not in the mood for your pity right now, so if that's all you're here for—"

"That's not what I'm here for, Dick." Barbara said shortly. "And it's not pity.

_It's sympathy._ She thought solemnly. _There's a difference. I'm here out of sympathy. Out of love._

Dick huffed a laugh of disbelief and shook his head. "Right. Because you're so good with just talking everything out. So good at expressing your feelings." He said bitterly. "When in doubt, just sleep with the broken, pathetic excuse for a leader and hope it leads him on long enough to convince the poor son of a bitch that he actually _means_ something to you. Until you're done playing around with him."

"It's not like that." Barbara cut him off. "You know it isn't like that."

"Isn't it?" Dick's eyes blazed into her.

For a moment longer, there was silence.

"I told you I'd always love you." Dick said, and this time his voice was softer, gentler. "And that I'm always going to be there for you." He looked at that space over her shoulder again and his hard, warm palms slipped into hers comfortingly. "I will always be your there for you. I'll always protect you. As your _friend._"

"Richard—"

"But I can't do this, not anymore." He shook his head. "Wally dying… it's just… shown me so much more than I wanted to see." He looked as if he was in pain. "What we have—Barbara, it's not going to end well for either of us. I can't stand… I can't _live_ through losing you too. Please. This is for the best."

"Dick, I swear, I'm not using you, this isn't what you—"

"I know, Barbara. I'm sorry I said those things when we came in. I was angry. But you can't be here right now. You need to leave. I'm… I'm sorry."

It was then that she broke, and not in the way that she had been expecting. She didn't yell, didn't fight, didn't try to persuade him to let her stay, let her talk to him.

She talks to him. For the first time in five years, she really talks to him, and tells him the whole truth. She tells him how she feels, what she wants, why she can't express herself.

She tells him everything except James.

"My problem… isn't with words, Richard. It's…" Barbara's eyes watered, and she looked down at the carpet. "Look." She said. "The problem was never that I didn't love you. I did. I just didn't do it _right. _I'm not used to… I mean, I didn't know _how_, for a long time… and then there was you, and I couldn't—" She was furious with herself as her voice broke off in a sob.

Dick took a slow, calm step towards her, an unreadable expression etched across his face. Barbara couldn't know what he could be thinking, but she went on.

"Dick, my… strategy was always to just go on pretending that I didn't love you until either you believed it or I did. I never wanted to hurt you. I never, never wanted to make you feel like you were alone, but dammit Dick, I'm just so lost, and I keep trying to get out of this but the more I try the worse things get—" Her throat felt like a tightly strung cord, ready to snap as she struggled to get out more words than tears as Dick drew nearer.

"—And I am _never_ there for you, I just make you even _more_ miserable because you know I can't say it back, and yet somehow _you_ always end up taking care of _me_." Barbara's words were a blurred jumble of incoherent sobs by the time Dick finally pulled her into his arms.

"Shhhh. Shhhh. It's okay, I'm here. I've got you." He soothed, rocking her and stroking her hair. Once again, he somehow ended up being the one comforting her.

"I just want to give something back." She finally managed to choke out. "I… I love you."

Silence. For a moment, she was afraid she had done something wrong. He stared at her incomprehensibly, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. So she said it again, more quietly this time. Softer.

And then suddenly her back was against the wall and Dick's mouth was on hers and he was everywhere, his knee pressing between her thighs recklessly. "Say it again." She thinks she hears tears in his voice when he pushes her back against his bedroom door.

She does, and there's a creek of a metal door hinge squeaking open as Dick pushes her forwards into the darkness.

It's a hot, heavy clash of emotions as he lifts her clean off her feet, one arm wrapped around her thighs and the other locked around her back, pinning her as tightly to him as possible.

Dick had never understood his own strength, didn't realize that he could crush her with a flex of his arm or leave bruises on her skin from holding her too tight. Not that she ever complained. He had kissed her impatiently and roughly before but this—this was fierce. He kissed her like he was dying, like it was the last time he'd ever get to see her again. His fingers twisted painfully into her long hair and his arms crushed the air from her lungs, but she only kissed him harder.

It was a reckless clash of lips and teeth and tongues, of anger and impatience and frustration, but most of all, love.

Her clothes are dragged away, tugged off of her body impatiently. He was biting more harshly than he meant to, and as his hand tangled clumsily in her hair to pull her head back, she sucked in a small gasp of pain.

"Say it again." Dick said, breathless, his hands shakily slipping around her back to unhook her bra and dragging it away from her body. "Say my name."

"I love you, Richard." Barbara let out a slightly tearful laugh, her words heavy with irony and amazement that she was finally saying this to him. "I've loved you since that first day."

He throws whatever control he has left out the window, fingers clutching, lips demanding. Barbara gasps as her back slams against the cool, worn sheets, and he lowers himself over her and groans in pure pleasure.

They're still, if only for a moment. Shaky breaths and blistering caresses and blue on blue as they stare into each other's eyes, prolonging that one, still moment of tranquility. And then, like he did with all things, Dick had to take that moment of still, empty silence and shatter it.

It's like their first time all over again. A reckless, desperate clash of emotions and blind _want._ She doesn't think he's conscious of how rough he's being. Her head slams against the headboard every few seconds, and his fingers are going to leave bruises on her skin, but at the moment, she's too intoxicated with him to care.

He fumbles and trembles, clumsy and eager, reminding her of their first time. Of how they had been so caught up in each other, they had been rough to a degree that bordered on violence. His hands are too hard on her and he's moving too fast for her to adjust comfortably. But right now she doesn't give a damn because it's making him so blissfully, euphorically happy, and he's murmuring her name over and over, almost with reverence.

He's trying to make it good for her, she can tell. He roles over, pulling her on top of him, fumbling to move up into her in the way he knows she likes—it hurts, in truth, but she lets out a wayward moan and drops her forehead to his chest as if it didn't.

His eyes burn into hers intensely, and he whines a little, low in the back of his throat. She rocks her hips a little and lets herself smirk a little, playful, when she sees his pupils dilate.

"Barbara—" He only manages to choke out a word of warning before grabbing her hard by the shoulders and rolling again, turning her underneath them. And then he's slamming into her with this desperate, powerful, overwhelming force, and she has to bite down on his shoulder to keep from screaming.

Dick had no problem expressing his feelings with words— that much had been evident to Barbara for most of the time she'd known him. But now, he had abandoned any attempt at a speech, instead threading his fingers through her hair and just _moving_ into her again and again, until her vision was a scattered pallet of hazy white light and blurred colors, like a camera lens flickering in and out of focus.

"There." She gasps, pleading, clutching at the strong arms that hold him only inches away from her. She wants to pull him down to lie on top of her, wants more, wants _him_. "_Right there_. Richard, don't stop."

He was murmuring now, his voice reaching that soft, crooning voice that meant he was growing close. _"So beautiful…"_ He gasped, ducking his head down to kiss her mouth, quickly, needily, knowing that they had only seconds left. _"Love you, love you so much," _he managed before his arms gave out and he was crushing her against the mattress, cooing and whimpering in her ear revealing that vulnerable, unguarded side of him that he never let anyone else see. In one low, last, exhausted breath, he looked up at her with glittering blue irises, glazed with love and lust. _"Mine…"_ He let out one last, sweet-sounding moan and his head dropped to her shoulder.

Dick wasn't possessive with Barbara—ever. He had learned that lesson early on. But with the emotion he breathed into that one, whispered syllable melted Barbara's heart. She was his. He was hers. Everything else, at the moment, was irrelevant.

_"Yours." _The word was a song as it passed her lips.

The headboard slammed against the wall and they both cried out, shuddering violently and making low, keening noises, pressing as close together as was physically possible.

She reluctantly pulled away and rolled over to her side of the bed, attempting to catch her breath. Her whole body ached, her head spun and she still felt euphoria radiating both from every cell in her body and from the man lying next to her.

Dick's hand fanned out to the left, searching for something on his nightstand while the other reached out for her blindly. "Barbara…"

She got the message, summoning all her remaining strength to cuddle closer to him, under his other arm as he searched for whatever was on the table.

"I love you." She said again, as soon as she could speak, and she felt a ripple go through Dick's body, of muscles tightening and untightening in a delighted shudder.

"I love you too." He murmured. There was a soft scrape of metal against wood, and his hand slipped under the covers and caught hers.

Barbara's heart stopped as she felt the thin, cool metal band being pushed around her finger, and for a moment she was too petrified to move.

"I'm not asking you now." Dick said in an undertone, staring at the peeling white paint on his ceiling. "I just want you to know that it's yours."

She pulled her hand out from under the thin sheets and stared at it—two thin, silver bands woven together in a simple design. It was battered and dented in some places, but the inscription on the top curve of one of the silvery white loops was prominent even in the dim light.

"Intrinsic?" Barbara read aloud.

"It was my mom's." Dick said hoarsely, blinking up at the ceiling. "Her promise ring. My dad gave it to her when they were sixteen—it's kind of like an engagement to be engaged. Usually, no one keeps those ones… but my mom… she loved the inscription." There was a pause, and Barbara murmured and apology that he ignored. "She was wearing it when… when she and dad… it fell off her finger and into the crowd somewhere. A couple of years ago, a lady who had been in the audience that night realized that it had belonged to Mary Grayson and she mailed it to me."

Barbara turned it around in her hands, smiling faintly at the small, wispy bird carvings etched around the inside of the ring. "Birds." She said softly. "Robins?"

Dick nodded. His hand smoothed over her stomach and clasped the hand bearing the ring. "It's yours." He said quietly.

"I'm not taking your mother's ring." Barbara told him flatly.

"You are. I'm not asking you… I'm not saying we have to… look Gordon, it's yours. It's been yours, for a long time. Wear it and don't complain." He smiled at her, looking happier than she'd seen him in days. "You're mine." He told her, nuzzling her neck affectionately. "Always have been, always will be."

"Pushing your luck, Grayson." Barbara muttered, her tone warning. "Anti-feminism is dead." But all the same, she wound her free arm around his neck and pressed a clumsy kiss to his cheek.

Dick smoothed out her fingers, unfolding them like a flower and holding her wrist up so he could look at the ring. "Beautiful." He claimed, his lips brushing against her skin.

"We still need to talk." She said quietly.

"I know." He murmured.

"About… about you lying to the team, and about me wandering off that night, and… and Wally. And everything. We need to talk about it all."

"I know."

She could tell in those two words that what he meant was, '_later. We'll deal with that later.'_

"I love you." She informed him.

"Never going to get tired of you saying that…" Dick ran his finger over the inscription of her ring.

"What does it mean?" Barbara asked.

"Intrinsic." Dick read. "Means something you've always known. Something instinctive. Something that just comes naturally." He leaned down to brush his lips against hers. "Or it can be a promise."

"What kind of promise?" Barbara inquired, rubbing her nose against his and giggling slightly.

"The kind you never break." Dick answered, as if it was the simplest concept in the world.

He kisses her, and as they roll over across the sheets, he laces her left fingers through his, turning her ring around in a full circle.

* * *

**A/N—Well, that's all for now, folks! I plan to follow up with a second 'book,' Reticent, in which I will hopefully be able to incoorperate more characters and expand the plot to fit into the entire team's lives, as well as several other villains other than James Junior. As for those of you who are furious for me killing off Wally, I wouldn't get too worked up yet… strange things are going to happen. Possibly. Really depends on what you guys think. I realize I may have stretched this series a bit too far. Ah well. Live and learn, I guess.**

**In between Intrinsic and Reticent, I'll be writing a bunch of little one-shots. So, what should they be? Fluff? Humor? Smut? Drabble? All advice is welcome. They'll all be a little different.**

**Thank you everyone who reads this for your continued support and thanks for sticking with this for so long. Can't wait to hear about what you think of this chapter!**


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